The Colorpedia Americana

A new reference book enticingly mixes facts and fluff

A one-volume encyclopedia should be bigger than a breadbox and smaller than the British Museum. By these criteria, The Random House Encyclopedia (2,856 pages; $69.95) triumphs. At almost twelve pounds, it may be too cumbersome for bedtime perusing, but at least a forklift is not required to hoist it to the pillow. And the R.H.E. is consistently light in tone. Its editors and the 800-plus others who worked on the book have assembled more than 3 million words, but they have also inserted nearly 12,000 color illustrations to brighten the load.

The heart of the R.H.E. is the unfortunately named "Colorpedia": 1,792 pages of essays and picture spreads intended to "cover the entire thematic flow of subject matter from the Universe." The graphic results, especially in the area of the natural sciences, are striking; a meat-and-salad sandwich, for example, is used to illustrate varieties of molecular structure.

Traditionalists may argue that the Colorpedia looks and reads like three decades' worth of Sunday supplements. Indeed, the encyclopedia's breathless attention to contemporary figures can lead to endless second-guessing. Why is Joe Namath given ten lines of biography, while only seven are accorded to the late Vladimir Nabokov? Why Walter Cronkite but not David Brinkley? If Capote rates an entry, why not Vidal? Such quibbles will depend on whose Gore is being axed. Still, the book changes browsers into learners. Whatever its flaws, the R.H.E. is a welcome invitation not only to the mind's eye but also to the eye's mind.

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