Ben Schott
Encyclopedia
Ben Schott is a British
writer, photographer, and author of the "Schott's Miscellanies
" and "Schott's Almanac
" series.
, England
on 26 May 1974, the son of a neurologist and a nurse. He has one brother, also now a neurologist. He went to school at University College School
, Hampstead
– both the junior school in Holly Hill and the senior school in Frognal
.
Schott went to Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he read Social and Political Sciences. At Cambridge he was a regular photographer for the university student newspaper Varsity (Cambridge)
. He played college hockey
, cricket
, and croquet
– though not to a very high standard. He was also a member of a number of dining societies, as well as being secretary of the Shakespeare Society – one of the oldest undergraduate societies in Cambridge. He took a double First
in 1996.
After Cambridge, Schott got a job at the London advertising agency J. Walter Thompson
where he was as an account manager on the Nestlé Rowntree account – working on Smarties
, Kit Kat
, and Polo. After only four months he resigned to become a freelance photographer.
, The Sunday Times
, Sunday Business
, Reader’s Digest, and the Institute of Directors
. A profile in The Times
said "his subjects included John Prescott
, who was rude, and Sir Roy Strong
, who had “the most wonderful, doleful eyes” and told him: “You must realise I’m awfully photogenic.” Tony Blair
asked Schott if he’d like to see then-baby Leo; Cherie
barked at him not to take too long as they were about to have lunch.”. His photographic portfolio is online.
wrote of Schott’s Original Miscellany, the first of Schott's three Miscellanies titles, “the idea for the book came from home-made Christmas
cards that Schott sent to friends. They were no ordinary cards, but consisted of little booklets containing all of the essential information he supposed that one needed to get through life, but could never find”. Schott typeset the book himself and had 50 copies privately printed by the Pear Tree Press in Stevenage. After sending copies out to his friends, he sent one to the CEO of Bloomsbury, Nigel Newton
. As Newton told the Boston Globe, “I was completely bowled over when it arrived on my desk. It was a work of striking originality, and it was remarkable to receive an unsolicited submission like this in the mail. I immediately passed it to one of our editors, who signed it up.”
Schott’s Original Miscellany was published with little fanfare, but an article by Stuart Jeffries on the front page of the Guardian’s G2 section on 6 December 2002 changed everything. Describing the book as the “publishing sensation of the year", the article said that “Schott has hit the list motherlode”. Sales raced up, and within weeks Schott’s Original Miscellany was at No. 1. Robert McCrum
said of the book in The Observer
: “Originality is like charisma. It's hard to define, but we know it when we find it ... Schott's Original Miscellany is without doubt the oddest, and possibly merriest, title you will come across in a long day's march through the shimmering desert of contemporary publishing”.
Schott followed up the success of the Original Miscellany with three sequels – Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany, Schott’s Sporting, Gaming, & Idling Miscellany and Schott's Quintessential Miscellany. While the first two were bestseller
s (Schott had two books simultaneously in the Sunday Times top ten), sales did not match the runaway success of the first book.
The Miscellany trilogy has sold well over 2 million copies, and has been translated and adapted into dozens of languages, including French, Russian, Greek, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Serbian, Spanish and Japanese.
was published in Britain
in 2005, followed by yearly editions published in Britain, America
, and Germany
until 2010. The Almanacs shared the same look and feel as the Miscellanies – but were substantially longer and larger. Each edition was different, although some content was shared or adapted. The British edition had sections on The World; Society; Media & Celebrity; Music & Movies; Books & Arts; Science & Technology; Parliament & Politics; Form & Faith; The Establishment
; Sport; and an Ephemerides section that contains traditional almanac information on dates, moon phases, and the season. The Sunday Times called Schott’s Almanac "a social barometer of genuine historical value”; the Boston Globe called it “One of the oddest and most addictively readable reference books in print”. Schott introduced the 2006 Almanac with a quote from Ben Hecht
: “Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock”.
, and also produced special miscellany features on Christmas
and the Olympics. For over a year he wrote a regular travel miscellany column for the UK edition of Condé Nast Traveler magazine. In 2005 and 2006 the Guardian featured special editions of G2 featuring extracts from Schott’s Almanac.
In 2008 Schott was appointed as a Contributing Columnist for The New York Times
OpEd page. He also writes regular features for The Times
.
Schott publishes a bespoke
Miscellany Diary
with the society printers Smythson of Bond Street, and a desk-pad diary with Workman. A range of Miscellany-ware products is in the pipeline.
. His books are noted for specifying the precise design tools (fonts, leading, etc.) that he employs. He has regularly acknowledged the influence of the work of Edward Tufte
in influencing the look and feel of his books.
The characteristic cover illustrations for his books are created by Alison Lang, and the drawing inside the Almanacs are by Chris Lyon.
In 2004, he won a D&AD
award for the design of Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
writer, photographer, and author of the "Schott's Miscellanies
Schott's Miscellanies
Schott's Miscellanies are a set of best-selling books by Ben Schott. They consist of a collection of trivia generally centred on the culture of the United Kingdom . The first book was published in 2002 by Bloomsbury to widespread acclaim...
" and "Schott's Almanac
Schott's Almanac
Schott's Almanac was a best-selling UK reference book, published annually in the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2010. The book was compiled by Ben Schott and published by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc....
" series.
Early life & university
Ben Schott was born in North LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
on 26 May 1974, the son of a neurologist and a nurse. He has one brother, also now a neurologist. He went to school at University College School
University College School
University College School, generally known as UCS, is an Independent school charity situated in Hampstead, north west London, England. The school was founded in 1830 by University College London and inherited many of that institution's progressive and secular views...
, Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
– both the junior school in Holly Hill and the senior school in Frognal
Frognal
Frognal is an affluent area in North West London in the London Borough of Camden between Hampstead and West Hampstead. Frognal is also the name of the major road in the area.-History:...
.
Schott went to Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he read Social and Political Sciences. At Cambridge he was a regular photographer for the university student newspaper Varsity (Cambridge)
Varsity (Cambridge)
Varsity is the oldest of Cambridge University's main student newspapers. It has been published continuously since 1947, and is one of only three fully independent student newspapers in the UK. It appears every Friday around Cambridge...
. He played college hockey
Hockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...
, cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, and croquet
Croquet
Croquet is a lawn game, played both as a recreational pastime and as a competitive sport. It involves hitting plastic or wooden balls with a mallet through hoops embedded into the grass playing court.-History:...
– though not to a very high standard. He was also a member of a number of dining societies, as well as being secretary of the Shakespeare Society – one of the oldest undergraduate societies in Cambridge. He took a double First
British undergraduate degree classification
The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for undergraduate degrees in the United Kingdom...
in 1996.
After Cambridge, Schott got a job at the London advertising agency J. Walter Thompson
JWT
JWT is one of the largest advertising agencies in the United States and the fourth-largest in the world. It is one of the key companies of Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP Group and is headquartered in New York. The global agency is led by Worldwide Chairman and Global CEO Bob Jeffrey who took over the...
where he was as an account manager on the Nestlé Rowntree account – working on Smarties
Smarties (Nestlé)
Nestlé Smarties are a colour-varied sugar-coated chocolate confectionery popular primarily in the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Germany and Greece. They have been manufactured since 1937, originally by H.I. Rowntree & Co.....
, Kit Kat
Kit Kat
Kit Kat is a chocolate-coated wafer confection that was created by Rowntree's of York, England, and is now produced worldwide by Nestlé, which acquired Rowntree in 1988, except in the United States where it is made under licence by The Hershey Company. Each bar consists of fingers composed of three...
, and Polo. After only four months he resigned to become a freelance photographer.
Photography
Schott worked as a photographer from 1996–2003, specialising in portraits of politicians and celebrities. He was commissioned by a range of editorial and commercial clients, including The IndependentThe Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, Sunday Business
Sunday Business
Sunday Business was a national Sunday broadsheet financial newspaper published in the United Kingdom, which ran from 1996 to 2006, when it was turned into a magazine called The Business....
, Reader’s Digest, and the Institute of Directors
Institute of Directors
The Institute of Directors is a UK-based organisation, established in 1903 and incorporated by royal charter in 1906 to support, represent and set standards for company directors...
. A profile in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
said "his subjects included John Prescott
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...
, who was rude, and Sir Roy Strong
Roy Strong
Sir Roy Colin Strong FRSL is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London...
, who had “the most wonderful, doleful eyes” and told him: “You must realise I’m awfully photogenic.” Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
asked Schott if he’d like to see then-baby Leo; Cherie
Cherie Blair
Cherie Blair , known professionally as Cherie Booth QC, is a British barrister working in the legal system of England and Wales. She is married to the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair; the couple have three sons and one daughter...
barked at him not to take too long as they were about to have lunch.”. His photographic portfolio is online.
Schott's Miscellanies
As The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
wrote of Schott’s Original Miscellany, the first of Schott's three Miscellanies titles, “the idea for the book came from home-made Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
cards that Schott sent to friends. They were no ordinary cards, but consisted of little booklets containing all of the essential information he supposed that one needed to get through life, but could never find”. Schott typeset the book himself and had 50 copies privately printed by the Pear Tree Press in Stevenage. After sending copies out to his friends, he sent one to the CEO of Bloomsbury, Nigel Newton
Nigel Newton
Nigel Newton is the founder and Chief Executive of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, one of the largest publishing companies in the United Kingdom. Newton was joined by David Reynolds, Liz Calder and Alan Wherry, in his new venture, which was launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1986.Bloomsbury was...
. As Newton told the Boston Globe, “I was completely bowled over when it arrived on my desk. It was a work of striking originality, and it was remarkable to receive an unsolicited submission like this in the mail. I immediately passed it to one of our editors, who signed it up.”
Schott’s Original Miscellany was published with little fanfare, but an article by Stuart Jeffries on the front page of the Guardian’s G2 section on 6 December 2002 changed everything. Describing the book as the “publishing sensation of the year", the article said that “Schott has hit the list motherlode”. Sales raced up, and within weeks Schott’s Original Miscellany was at No. 1. Robert McCrum
Robert McCrum
Robert McCrum , is an English writer and editor. He served as literary editor of The Observer for more than ten years. In May 2008 he was appointed Associate Editor of the Observer and was succeeded as literary editor by William Skidelsky...
said of the book in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
: “Originality is like charisma. It's hard to define, but we know it when we find it ... Schott's Original Miscellany is without doubt the oddest, and possibly merriest, title you will come across in a long day's march through the shimmering desert of contemporary publishing”.
Schott followed up the success of the Original Miscellany with three sequels – Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany, Schott’s Sporting, Gaming, & Idling Miscellany and Schott's Quintessential Miscellany. While the first two were bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
s (Schott had two books simultaneously in the Sunday Times top ten), sales did not match the runaway success of the first book.
The Miscellany trilogy has sold well over 2 million copies, and has been translated and adapted into dozens of languages, including French, Russian, Greek, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Serbian, Spanish and Japanese.
Schott’s Almanacs
The first edition of Schott's AlmanacSchott's Almanac
Schott's Almanac was a best-selling UK reference book, published annually in the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2010. The book was compiled by Ben Schott and published by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc....
was published in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 2005, followed by yearly editions published in Britain, America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
until 2010. The Almanacs shared the same look and feel as the Miscellanies – but were substantially longer and larger. Each edition was different, although some content was shared or adapted. The British edition had sections on The World; Society; Media & Celebrity; Music & Movies; Books & Arts; Science & Technology; Parliament & Politics; Form & Faith; The Establishment
The Establishment
The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...
; Sport; and an Ephemerides section that contains traditional almanac information on dates, moon phases, and the season. The Sunday Times called Schott’s Almanac "a social barometer of genuine historical value”; the Boston Globe called it “One of the oddest and most addictively readable reference books in print”. Schott introduced the 2006 Almanac with a quote from Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
: “Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock”.
Journalism
For two years after the publication of the first Miscellany, Schott wrote a weekly miscellany column for The Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, and also produced special miscellany features on Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and the Olympics. For over a year he wrote a regular travel miscellany column for the UK edition of Condé Nast Traveler magazine. In 2005 and 2006 the Guardian featured special editions of G2 featuring extracts from Schott’s Almanac.
In 2008 Schott was appointed as a Contributing Columnist for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
OpEd page. He also writes regular features for The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
.
Schott publishes a bespoke
Bespoke
Bespoke is a term employed in a variety of applications to mean an item custom-made to the buyer's specification...
Miscellany Diary
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
with the society printers Smythson of Bond Street, and a desk-pad diary with Workman. A range of Miscellany-ware products is in the pipeline.
Design
Schott typesets all of his books and most of his articles – now using Adobe’s InDesign after apparently abandoning QuarkXPressQuarkXPress
QuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
. His books are noted for specifying the precise design tools (fonts, leading, etc.) that he employs. He has regularly acknowledged the influence of the work of Edward Tufte
Edward Tufte
Edward Rolf Tufte is an American statistician and professor emeritus of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale University. He is noted for his writings on information design and as a pioneer in the field of data visualization....
in influencing the look and feel of his books.
The characteristic cover illustrations for his books are created by Alison Lang, and the drawing inside the Almanacs are by Chris Lyon.
In 2004, he won a D&AD
D&AD
Design and Art Direction is a British educational charity which exists to promote excellence in design and advertising...
award for the design of Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany.
Miscellany
Miscellaneous facts about Ben Schott:- he plays the drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
in a funk band; - he has always wanted to be the host of I'm Sorry I Haven't a ClueI'm Sorry I Haven't a ClueI'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or Clue, is a BBC radio comedy panel game broadcast since 11 April 1972 at the rate of one or two series each year , transmitted on BBC Radio 4, with occasional repeats on BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC's World Service...
; - he drives an old 1967 MercedesMercedes-BenzMercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
; - he is on the advisory board of the reference website Credo Reference;
- he collects cufflinks;
- GQ readers voted Schott one of their Men of the Year in 2003 – but he declined the award.
- Ben competes in the fantasy football league called "The Crew". He is a former league champion.