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World's Shortest Book
- 134 statements
- 25 feature instances
- 13 referencing feature instances
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| World's Shortest Book | comment |
A type of insult, this is a shorthand way of saying what a character is NOT capable of. The implication is that, if a certain person were to write this book, it would have little or no content because they can't do what the title says. These are typically cruel to the purported "author", which is why we're limiting this to appearances in works of fiction. Sometimes the title says it all ("The Amish Phone Directory"), and sometimes the author of the book is the key ("What I Wouldn't Do for Money" by Dennis Rodman). Occasionally inverted where what someone doesn't know is said to be a large book. (Which, in Real Life would be the case for everyone because there is an incredible amount of information in the universe that you would need to have an astonishingly huge mental capacity to retain it.) Contrast Wrote the Book. Similar in spirit to A Rare Sentence. Not to be confused with Pamphlet Shelf, which is when books in video games have only a few pages if that. Should be limited to examples that appear in fiction. |
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| World's Shortest Book | fetched |
2024-04-11T19:30:48Z | |
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Dropped link to PlayedWith: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to SelfDeprecation: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| World's Shortest Book | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_1fc7499e | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_1fc7499e | comment |
From Reaper Man: the Dean claims that The Librarian can't come along on a mission to rescue Windle Poons from the living shopping mall because he "doesn't know the a thing about guerilla warfare" The Librarian responds by making "a surprisingly expressive gesture to indicate that that, on the other hand, what he didn't know about orangutan warfare could possibly be written on the very small pounded-up remains of, for example, the Dean." | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_253f1c17 | type |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_253f1c17 | comment |
In The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), one of the players announces a reading of "the funniest sections of the book of Job." Awkward silence ensues, because, of course, the book of Job doesn't have any funny parts. Another compares the Book of Ruth to other short books like Great Moments of Tolerance in the Old Testament and Positive Images of Women in the Bible. | |
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World's Shortest Book / int_253f1c17 | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_261c8d3f | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_261c8d3f | comment |
Another inversion, from The Simpsons: | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_2abd5315 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_2abd5315 | comment |
Whose Line Is It Anyway?: | |
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| Whose Line Is It Anyway? | hasFeature |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_2ba48a26 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_2ba48a26 | comment |
Inverted in a Castle second season episode: | |
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| Castle (2009) | hasFeature |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_35a060cc | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_35a060cc | comment |
Done in the form of a visual gag in Airplane! with "Famous Jewish Sporting Legends". It's just a pamphlet. | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_3f4a104b | type |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_3f4a104b | comment |
Played with in Dilbert. Dogbert is writing an encyclopedia, but its mostly on him. Although he has a section on Canada which simply says "Canada has trees." This was, incidentally, before the advent of the common wiki. | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_400469e | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_400469e | comment |
In one Calvin and Hobbes strip: | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_4fd9904a | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_4fd9904a | comment |
An inversion from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: | |
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| Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | hasFeature |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_5755b96a | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_5755b96a | comment |
Inverted in The Order of the Stick, when Roy makes a couple assumptions about Haley. | |
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| The Order of the Stick (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_5c897f4a | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_5c897f4a | comment |
Inverted in Schlock Mercenary: | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_60e46926 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_60e46926 | comment |
MAD occasionally had a shelf of these, usually political- or current events-themed. A few examples: "Etiquette" by Lyndon Johnson "Truths I Have Told" by Richard Nixon "MAD Magazine's Contributions to American Culture" |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_7ad0ade | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_7ad0ade | comment |
George of the Jungle has this, as shown in the page quote. | |
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| George of the Jungle | hasFeature |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_84782a62 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_84782a62 | comment |
Played with in A Bit of Fry and Laurie; Laurie goes to a library to check out the book The West Indies: A Nation of Cricketers, and discovers that it reads only "The West Indies aren't much good at cricket." But it's not because they really aren't; it's because the book has been vandalized by nationalistic librarians who refuse to admit that England is capable of losing at cricket. | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_8645d677 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_8645d677 | comment |
In the fourth Spellsinger novel, Paths of the Perambulator, a cage of insults tries to taunt Mudge with "tell me everything you know, it won't take very long." However, Mudge just fires back "I'll tell you everything we both know. It won't take any longer." | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_99d0c794 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_99d0c794 | comment |
A non-book example from The Jungle Book (1967): | |
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| The Jungle Book (1967) | hasFeature |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_9bb5aad4 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_9bb5aad4 | comment |
Non-book example in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. When Judai is dueling the Duel Spirit Kaibaman, who has just summoned one of the real Kaiba's Dragons, Manjyome remarks, "this could be a very short duel..." (Actually, as far as duels in the series go, it's average-length, but Judai loses.) | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_a59e2b87 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_a59e2b87 | comment |
The Knowledge: The melancholy character of Titanic says that he could write a book on happiness, which would be be the cheapest book on the market, with no pages in it. | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_b226ea10 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_b226ea10 | comment |
Match Game tended to have questions worded like, "Did you hear about the world's shortest book? It's called (insert title here), and it's written by [BLANK]." | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_b96564e6 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_b96564e6 | comment |
Referenced in Fawlty Towers with the character Johnson in "The Psychiatrist," who says the guidebook about interesting things in Torquay must be "one of the world's shortest books," like "The Wit of Margaret Thatcher" or "Great English Lovers." | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_beb5cc72 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_beb5cc72 | comment |
When the protagonist of Does My Head Look Big in This? is taunted by Tia Thompson about her religion, she makes an offhand comment about finding the shortest book she ever read called "My Thoughts by Tia Thompson". Tia gives up for the time being. | |
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World's Shortest Book / int_beb5cc72 | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_cf39ca4f | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_cf39ca4f | comment |
In one Pearls Before Swine strip, Rat writes a book about what men want. There is one single page with the word "SEX" in all caps. | |
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| World's Shortest Book / int_d4efb984 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_d4efb984 | comment |
On The Golden Girls, Blanche finds out that her sister's new romance novel is based on Blanche's sex life. | |
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World's Shortest Book / int_d4efb984 | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_f361b493 | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_f361b493 | comment |
On I Love Lucy, when Lucy decides to write a novel: | |
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World's Shortest Book / int_f361b493 | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_f634206e | type |
World's Shortest Book | |
| World's Shortest Book / int_f634206e | comment |
Ratatouille has an inversion when Remy explains to his brother Emile why he reads. | |
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