The intellectual's checklist : more than 350 esoteric facts, figures, and philosophies only the smartest people know

Can you name: All five movements of Beethoven's Missa solemnis. Check. The films that Kurosawa based on Western works. Check. Dante's Nine Circles of Hell. Check. If so, you're off to an edifying start--but that's just round one in this hard-hitting match of wits and wisdom. Take the formidable plunge--and find out if you are truly well versed enough to call yourself an aspiring pundit, poet, and philosopher. Either way, you'll be worthy of the esteemed moniker intellectual by the time you've gone the distance with this book. (As Thoreau is our witness.) Whether you are just beginning to suspect you're the possessor of superior acumen or you'd bet your Homeric Greek translation of The Iliad on it, this book is an essential addition to any personal library. All five movements of Beethoven's "Missa solemnis." Check. The films that Kurasawa based on Western works. Check. Dante's "Nine Circles of Hell". Check. These are the sorts of elegant erudition every self-respecting intellectual should know - inside and out. In "The Intellectual's Checklist", aspiring pundits, poets, and philosophers find the arcane checklists that reveal whether they are truly well-versed enough in the arts and sciences of the obscure to warrant the esteemed moniker "Intellectual". From Nietzsche to Newton, Einstein to Eisenstadt, Sappho to Sartre, this elucidating volume giv From Nietzsche to Newton, Einstein to Eisenstadt, Sappho to Sartre, this title gives readers the esoterica they need to bask in the knowledge that they really do know everything.