The Dangerous Book for Boys, by Conn and Hal Iggulden, is a guidebook published by HarperCollins, aimed at boys "from eight to eighty." It covers around eighty topics, including how to build a treehouse, grow a crystal, or tell direction with a watch. Also included are famous quotes, stories, battles, and phrases that "every boy should know." It was published in the UK on 5 June 2006, and reached number one in the UK non-fiction charts several times, selling over half a million copies.
Conn Iggulden also published a book, Wolf of the Plains, about Genghis Khan, which, along with The Dangerous Book for Boys, allowed Iggulden to be the first author to reach the number one spot in both the fiction and non-fiction charts.
Within the first week of its US publication on May 1, 2007, it reached number two on the Amazon.com bestselling book lists, being outsold only by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Other people who contributed to the success of the book include the editorial team at the time, which consisted of Katie Espiner and Clare Hey, and Helen Johnstone, who won the 2007 British Book Industry Award for best publicity campaign. Linde Hardaker did the typesetting, Richard Horne most of the illustrations (although only as black and white; the color was added later), and Lee Motley was involved with the cover. Matthew Benjamin was the editor of the subsequent U.S. edition, of which about a third of the content was altered from the original UK edition.
The Sharpe Company, Inc. of Manhattan Beach, CA is the licensing/promotions agent for The Dangerous Book for Boys in North America and Rocket Licensing handles licensing in the UK and Europe. Products soon available include a Dangerous Book for Boys board game from Hasbro as well as calendars, science and chemistry kits, magic and illusion games and much more. The Times produced a series of free fold-up posters displaying extracts of the book which it ran for a week. There are some publicity materials floating around, which include badges used for the UK version of the website and samplers which were produced to give a taste of the book before publication. The Dangerous Pocket Book had its own publicity material which included three different postcards which featured individual face cards from the poker card section of the Pocket Book.
Read more about The Dangerous Book For Boys: Reception, Awards and Nominations, Editions, Similar Books, Film
Famous quotes containing the words dangerous, book and/or boys:
“I waited alone, in the company of orchids, roses and violets who—like people waiting beside you, but to whom you are unknown—maintained a silence which their individuality of living things rendered more imposing and in their chilly manner received the heat from an incandescent coal fire, preciously placed behind a crystal glass, in a white marble tub where it dropped, from time to time, its dangerous rubies.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“A guide book is addressed to those who plan to follow the traveler, doing what he has done, but more selectively. A travel book, in its purest, is addressed to those who do not plan to follow the traveler at all, but who require the exotic or comic anomalies, wonders and scandals of the literary form romance which their own place or time cannot entirely supply.”
—Paul Fussell (b. 1924)
“Here in the country it is only a few idle boys or loafers that go a-fishing on a rainy day; but there it appeared as if every able-bodied man and helpful boy in the Bay had gone out on a pleasure excursion in their yachts, and all would at last land and have a chowder on the Cape.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)