http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.cfm?ac t=archive&year=2006&month=11
Ben Schott, British collector of miscellany and author of the soon-to-be-published Schott�s Almanac 2007. Although the almanac includes information both trivial and significant about the past year, Schott makes a distinction between the sort of facts he collects and mere garden variety trivia:
�I hate trivia,� he said, �and I�ve never been interested in trivia books. Trivia is competitive; it�s �I know this and you don�t.� I think what I�m doing is more inclusive. It�s more about sharing information. So it�s not so much about, say, who won the Super Bowl in such and such a year as what�s engraved on the Super Bowl trophy. Trivia books are written by people who are obsessed, and I wouldn�t want to read any of them.�
The only thing Schott could be accused of being obsessed with is classic book design: �Mr. Schott does all the typesetting himself and tries to make every paragraph end flush right.
� He also tells the Times, �There�s real metaphorical joy in juxtaposition. I think it�s quite funny to talk about Paris Hilton, for example, in the same typeface that Ben Franklin might have used.�