The Complete Idiot's Guide to...

"The Complete Idiot's Guide" are reference books that provide a very basic understanding of seemingly difficult topics. This is accomplished by using very basic words and terminology to explain different facets of a topic. Definitions of words, profiles of people and a synopsis of events for context are also provided when necessary. They are very similar to the "For Dummies" books.

This series of books are published by Alpha, a member of Penguin Group USA Inc.

Origin

The guide that brought the series to popularity was "The Complete Idiot's Guide to DOS", or "Idiot's DOS" for short because the original cover made "Idiot's" and "DOS" huge in comparison to the rest of the title, the same way that "DOS For Dummies" popularized the Dummies series.

The idea for the series may have originated partly from the a book entitled "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, A Guide for the Complete Idiot." This John Muir book, popular in the heyday of the Volkswagen, was perhaps the first guide to use humor to make car repair less intimidating.

ee also

*"For Dummies", a similar series of books

References

External links

* [http://www.idiotsguides.com/ The Complete Idiot's Guides Website]