What is "The Smarty at the Party"?

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From the cover of The Concise Guide... (Wikipedia)

Over a decade ago, someone wrote a book with the inelegant title The Concise Guide to Sounding Smart at Parties: An Irreverent Compendium of Must-Know Info from Sputnik to Smallpox and Marie Curie to Mao (Amazon). Such books were all the rage at the time, and are still being churned out here and there.

What they lacked, of course, was context.

So one thing I'm doing for you with Baquet's Guide to the World's Classics is giving you a more "long form" version of what-there-is-to-know, and a handful of bullet points that will make you look good in a gathering--the "smarty at the party."

If you remember nothing else, try to retain these few tidbits.

That, and to put your pants on before you leave the house. Always remember the pants.

Created Sep. 25, 2017