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[[Category:New Reviews|Trivia]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->==Trivia==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel Vreeman1780724047|title=Don't Swallow Your Gum|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary='''BANG'''. That's the sound A Dictionary of copious urban myths being shot down. '''BANG'''. That's the sound of the old wives slamming the door, as their tales get revealed as baseless. '''CLICK'''. That's the noise lots of ill-informed websites make as they get closed down. All noises come due to this brilliant book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewInteresting and Important Dogs|author=Justin Scroggie|title=Eye Spy: Uncovering the Secrets of the World Around YouPeter J Conradi
|rating=4
|genre=TriviaPets|summary=Signs are everywhere. I struggle to resist a book about dogs, but I did wonder why this one was so ''thin'': given that I've never encountered a dog who wasn't really one of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until the day interesting or important - and probably both, I was driven past expecting a pair massive tome. But ''A Dictionary of speed regulation signs, positioned at the exit end Interesting and Important Dogs'' is actually ''a rich compendium of a one-way street but facing the illegal way up world's most significant and beloved dogs'' and it's certainly a rich treasure trove. Not all signs We begin with Peter J Conradi's four collies: Cloudy, of courseSky. Bradley and Max. They're consecutive rather than simultaneous dogs, are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visible, which but what comes over is where this pictorial guide to countless coded messages, signifiers Conradi's love for each and other similar factoids comes every one of them. I knew that I was insafe hands.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994487</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt Allen Don Behrend|title=Where Are They NowCopernicus! What Have You Done? - Rediscovering Over 100 Football Stars of the 70s : ...and 80s Other Interesting Questions
|rating=4.5
|genre=SportTrivia|summary=This looks like some peopleHello! Would this review be okay if I simply said ''s worst idea of a book, everI LOVED THIS GLORIOUS LITTLE BOOK AND SO WILL YOU. Trivia, nostalgia, football, and lists - does it get more masculineFIN''? There's not a female in sight, either, as we get 101 portraits of footballers from times past, and most importantly, a summary of their career since hanging up the boots in the professional game! Because I did. And you will.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905156421</amazonuk>1789016770
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip ArdaghLloyd_1423|title=Philip Ardagh's Book of Howlers1,423 QI Facts to Bowl You Over|author=John Lloyd, Blunders James Harkin and Random MistakeryAnne Miller|rating=45|genre=Children's Non-FictionTrivia|summary=ThereYou may think me lazy, but there is an inherent satisfaction for book reviewers in hitting upon a book such as this – you know you will have very little bearing on its sales, and what's nought so queer as folkmore you hardly even need describe it – just dip in here and there for a few quotes, and sit back and relax knowing your job is done. From ''Only 1% of people who buy marmalade are under the idiot who broke into a car without realising his name and date age of birth 28. Treadmills were clearly seen on his tattoo on CCTV, to once the people who ordered someone to paint clothes on all harshest form of punishment after the people in the Sistine Chapel death penalty. Naked mole- before others came along who decided rats can survive for 18 minutes without oxygen by turning themselves into plants.'' And the original had been betterwhole of page 52. There, job done – and the people who dismissed The Beatles as never likely creators of this book certainly have done their job to make a name for themselves. We have long been a race of idiotsperfection.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330471724</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marlene Wagman-Geller Brightside_101|title=Once Again 101 Things to Zelda: Fifty Great Dedications and Their StoriesTake the Stress Out of Christmas|author=Robin Snow
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Once you've done all the hard work (written a book, found a publisher, decided on a design for the cover and all those things), For many years one of my guiding principles has been that the remaining difficulties must C word should not be deciding who you should dedicate mentioned until the tome beginning of December but, unfortunately, C seems to. Assuming be coming earlier each year and there are even shops where it's no Oscar speechnever ceases to be imminent, and you can't thank which ramps up the world and his dogstress levels considerably. So, you have a book which promises 101 things to narrow it down somewhat and select that special person whose name wins pride take the stress out of place on the first pageC seemed like a good idea. Do you then go with something cryptic and intriguing, or apparently banal and blatantly obviousWhat’s it about? I'm sure most readers don't even look at Tips like putting the dedications sprouts on to boil in most books, but if you did, would you understand the significance of them? Would something saying ''To my wife'' make you look twice, November or would that seem like joining a reasonably common way to dedicate a bookreligion which avoids the celebration altogether? In ''Once Again, To Zelda'' you can discover the stories you don't know behind the stories you may wellWell, as the author delves into the detail behind ''Fifty Great Dedications''not quite.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330511351</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mick O'HareBrightside_Worry|title=How To Make A Tornado101 Things to do instead of worrying about the world|author=Felicity Brightside
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Ah, I don't think that I've ever been quite so worried about the English language. That sine qua non, state of the prima facie lingua franca world as I have been of late - and I speak as someone who lived through the worldCuban Missile Crisis and various other apocalyptic moments. Prima inter pares when it It almost certainly comes down to taking influence and words from other tongues, and responding a lack of confidence in the people who are supposedly in kindcharge, to the chagrin whether it be from a political point of view or of our stewardship of the Frenchthis planet we call home. But what can be done about it? We all use it've tried voting, arguing and in this day and age demonstrating. Now we can update an internet dictionary overnight 're down to absorb all pulling up the neologisms, like "iPhone"; we can put the entire output of an author into a computer drawbridge and it will count every word use up so we can find a fingerprint of a writer's style. It's a never-ending, fluid, changing entity, for better or worsedoing our best to think about something else.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680069</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tadg FarringtonLloyd 1342|title=The Average Life of the Average Person1,342 QI Facts To Leave You Flabbergasted|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin and Anne Miller
|rating=5
|genre=Popular ScienceTrivia|summary=Back I love the way the QI elves play games with us with [[:Category:John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin|these books]]. That's not to say it's a game of pulling the wool over our eyes, for every entrant in schoolthis series has had the equivalent online version for the sources, we would often bemoan so every page is replicated with the idea due links you need to search for proof of 'average'their statements. No, saying that like being 'normalthe game is Six Degrees of Separation. And they're so good at it, if there were such a thingthey can do most things in three. So in just three standalone, who would even want to be it? There could be nothing worsebut thematically linked, we thoughtphrases, than being averageyou can get from how to make the sound of an Orc army for ''Lord of the Rings'' films to record-breaking nipple hair. Except...there From illicit wartime barbers in Italy to American founding father bedroom arrangements, is by definition a whole lot worse than 'average' only three steps – and the exact same amount path carries on to reach that is better than averageerstwhile novice stand-up, Ronald Reagan, in facttwo more. And that was the problem It's only two jumps between Donald Trump and Charles Darwin, disconcertingly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086235</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robin LauranceLloyd_1411|title=Just What I Always Wanted: Unwrapping the World's Most Curious Birthday Presents1,411 QI Facts To Knock You Sideways|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Is there anything more suited to a trivia book, yet so much thought over, Handsome is as handsome does. And you know what else benefits from being curt and serioussuccinct, than the birthday presentalongside old housewives' saws like that one? It might be something completely throw-away, but mean a lot to the receiverTrivia. It might have cost I always thought the giver an awful amount of money, and QI books such as this one to be disregarded by the person expected to accept it. And if you think the givings and takings of the rich and famous are sheer handsome things – perfectly presenting trivia, just think about four (on rare occasion, three) statements to the number of sociologists and historians who would jump at the chance to explorepage, sayin a very nice little cubical hardback. Now they're being represented in paperback, Hitlerbut you know what? They's given giftsre still handsome things. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847246168</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=AQA 63336Lloyd_1339|title=Brilliant Answers1,339 QI Facts To Make Your Jaw Drop|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Do A spermologer ''is a collector of trivia''. Just that sentence tells you need an answer to a question? Have you got your mobile handy? Right lot – text that question to 63336, we're once more in the Home realm of Any Question Answeredthe curt, succinct approach to the world's information and for £1 you'll have the answer within minutesoddities. It might seem like magic but it's actually says more, however – beyond the result weirdness of a lot the word is the obvious necessity for the word to exist – without people that could be called collectors of people being on hand to research your problem and give trivia you would not need the solutionterm. Over the years 1.7 million And rest assured, there are currently few people have asked over fifteen million questions and that stand as a special treat at the end of each year AQA lets us have a look at some of the most interesting questions and answers that they've seen in the course of better spermologers than the yearchief QI elves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682169</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracey TurnerMetcalf_Skedaddle|title=The Book From Skedaddle to Selfie: Words of Big Excusesthe Generation|author=Allan Metcalf
|rating=3.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=AhI have to go a roundabout way to introduce this book, so bear with me. It stems partly from dictionaries and the etymology of the language we've use, but more so if anything from a different couple of books, and their ideas of generations. The authors of those posited the idea that all made excuses at those archetypical generations – the Baby Boomers, the Millennials, and those before, in between and since – have their own cyclical pattern, and the history of humanity has been and will be formed by the interplay of just four different kinds, running (with only one time or anotherexception) in regular order. We I don't really hold much store by that, and I certainly didn't know we've all done d started one since the Millennials – who the heck decides such things we shouldn, for one? ''t Somebody must have done, then when caught put out given a reason for it. Perhaps wean order''ve even given excuses , as stylish someone here says of something else. But in the same way as Zambian tennis player Lighton Ndefwaylgenerations get defined by collective persons unknown, who said of his opponent: "[He] is a stupid man so do words – and those words are certainly a hopeless player. He has a huge nose and is cross-eyed. Girls hate him. He beat me because my jockstrap clue to what was too tight and because when he serves he fartsimportant, predominant and that made me lose my concentration, for which I am famous throughout Zambia." Tracey Tuner has collated some of the best excuses ever given into a handy collectioncourse spoken in each decade.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340970553</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew ColeHalliday_Cathedrals|title=Will Work for NutsCathedrals and Abbeys (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)|author=Stephen Halliday|rating=34.5|genre=PetsTrivia|summary=The intrepid adventurer faces What makes a cathedral? It's not automatically the principal church of anywhere that is made a most daunting challenge. Girding his loins in anticipation city – St Davids is a village of achieving his goal2, he leaps into action000 people and wasn't always a city, hell-bent only on successbut always had a cathedral, never fearing as did Chelmsford. It's not the inherent dangerseat of a bishop – Glasgow has the building but not the person, and hasn't had a bishop since 1690. With death-defying stunts It's not a minster – that's something completely different, and leaps aplentyif you can understand the sign in the delightful Beverley Minster describing the difference, he needs to use any vehicles he finds in his paththat I saw only the other month, untold balancing skillsyou're a better man I, nerve-racking whippy plastic stick thingsGunga Din. Luckily this book doesn't touch on minsters much, and an awful lot morewe can understand abbeys, so it's only the vast majority of this book that is saddled with the definition problem. Finally his litheIt's clearly not a real problem, muscular frame lands near his targetand those it does have are by-passable, for this successfully defines a cathedral as somewhere of major importance, fine trivia and he sits back and eats his nutsgreatly worthy of our attention.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007279574</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Niall Edworthy and Petra CramsieBramley_Shakespeare|title=The Optimist's/pessimist's HandbookShakespeare Trail|author=Zoe Bramley
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=With a publication date in early NovemberIt has been 400 years since William Shakespeare, the passing Christmas shopper is clearly man heralded as the greatest writer in the target for this book. ''The OptimistEnglish language, and England's/ Pessimist's Handbook'' isn't national poet, died. Shakespeare has made a self-help bookprofound mark on our culture and heritage, but a compendium yet many aspects of enlightening snippets. Off his life remain in the shelfshadows, I think you'd know immediately which relative or friend might enjoy receiving itand many places throughout England have forgotten their association with him. So I suggest eschewing Amazon in favour Here, Zoe Bramley takes the reader on a journey through hundreds of a real-life bookshop, not least because there places associated with Shakespeare – many whose connections will be come as a shelf full surprise to most. Filled with intriguing tidbits of similar books for a surreptitious information about Shakespeare, Elizabethan England, and delightful half-hour's browse before choosingthe places that she talks about, this is no mere travel guide.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561411X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Danny DanzigerHalliday_London|title=The ThingummyLondon (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)|author=Stephen Halliday|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Oh lookWhat makes a city? Is it the materials, such as the very London Stone itself, of mythological repute, that has moved around several times, and now forms part of a trivia bookWH Smith's branch? (This has nothing, of course, on Temple Bar, which has also been known to walk. ) I don't think even I realised quite how many were published in Is it the people – the butchers [[Jack the Ripper: CSI: Whitechapel by John Bennett and Paul Begg|(Jack the Ripper)]], the run up bakers (or whoever set fire to every Christmasthe entire city from Pudding Lane) and the candlestick makers? Is it the infrastructure, from the Underground, but there are a lot. There is probably whose one-time boss got a name medal from Stalin for his success, to the phenomenon. There is a name for London Bridge itself, that bit between your nose and your lips – below your nasal septum comes in its own wanderlust means it's highly unlikely the philtrum. Thames will freeze again? There's However you define a city, London certainly has a correct scientific name lot going for it as regards weird and wonderful, and the tummy-grumbling noises we make when things leave our stomach for lower downtrivial yet fascinating. HeckAnd, there's even a scientific name luckily for those circular grooves on top of a Frisbeeus, so has this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561456X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Justin ScroggieHolland_Railways|title=Tic-tac Teddy Bears Railways (Amazing and Teardrop TattoosExtraordinary Facts)|author=Julian Holland|rating=43
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Signs are everywhere. I wasn't really one How and when did Laurel and Hardy replace the Duke of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until York (George VI)? They reopened the day I was driven past a pair of speed regulation signsRomney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway when peacetime resumed, positioned at whose launch the latter had officiated before the War. What's the exit end of worst that can happen when you travel internationally and arrive on a one-way street but facing London goods train with no further destination documents? Well, if you're an unidentifiable Peruvian mummy you can get buried as an unknown corpse before the illegal way invoice turns up to prove you were wanted in Belgium. After so many miles and so much drama, it's no surprise odd facts and fun trivia derive from our country's trains. Not all signs, of course, are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visible, which This book is where this pictorial guide designed to countless coded messages, signifiers be an ideal source of quick articles and other similar factoids comes fun mini-essays for use inthe smallest room.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340976489</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angus Cargill (Editor)Donald_Words|title=Hang the DJ: An Alternative Book Words of Music Lists a Feather|author=Graeme Donald
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=AhWords of a Feather. The title alone suggests an engaging read about language, and the music listbook certainly delivers.It pairs seemingly unrelated words, digs up their etymological roots and reveals their common ancestry. The English language, of course, provides rich pickings indeed for a book of this type and it is fascinating to see the hidden meaning behind common and not-so-common words.Some connections are fairly obvious once you read them. balm For example, the link between ''grotto'' and ''grotesque'' is easy to pop obsessives (see Nick Hornbygrasp: the word ''grotesque''s derives from unpleasant figures depicted in murals in Ancient Roman ''High Fidelitygrottoes''). Other connections are just extraordinary, makeweight of copylike the so-crazy-you-couldn't-make-it-starved magazine editors, up link between ''furnace'' and staple of self-indulgent writers (see ''31 Songsfornicate'', also by Nick Hornby). The contributors These two words date back to this volume fall mainly into Ancient Rome when prostitutes took over the latter categorycity's abandoned baking domes. No fewer And some connections are more than thirty five a little tenuous, seemingly just a collection of them supply their musical top tenswords banded together, ranging from as is the case with the ''insult'' and ''salmon'' pairing. One of my personal favourites: the fanatical Italian word ''schiavo'' for ''slave'' was used to the frivoloussummon or dismiss a slave; this word became corrupted to ''ciao'', via a word the frankly frighteningmore well-heeled among us use instead of ''goodbye''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571241727</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam JordisonBinney_English|title=Sod That!: 103 Things Not To Do Before You DieThe English Countryside (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)|author=Ruth Binney
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Without sounding like a braggart, I have done some pleasant things live in life. I've caught the first bus up to Machu Picchu, countryside and shared spend as much time as the sunrise with only weather will allow exploring it, so the llamaschance to read Ruth Binney's ''The English Countryside'' was too good to be missed. IWe've eaten strange things while on a full fortnight tour of Icelandmet Ruth [[The Allotment Experience by Ruth Binney|before]] at Bookbag and we know that she writes well and interestingly, but just one thing was worrying me about this book. But closer to home, were I to have It's a list, there would be many things left on it – I've been nowhere near Bath, or York; I've never seen hardback and beautifully presented but its the film ET, which for a man of my age is something size of book that you slip into a claim to famepocket or handbag.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409100553</amazonuk> Would it be rather superficial?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian CroftonLloyd_1234|title=History Without the Boring Bits1,234 QI Facts to Leave You Speechless|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin
|rating=5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Now, I'm 'No US President has ever died in May.'' ''There are fewer women on corporate boards in America than there are men named John.'' ''Dogs investigate bad smells with their right nostril and good smells with their left.'' ''Apollo 11's fuel consumption was seven inches to the gallon.'' ''The first person to admit I am not a wine buffoccupational disease ever recorded in medical literature was 'chimney sweep's scrotum'. '' I know a lot more now than I did before my current relationship''The song 'Yes, but she is right to say I have a very masculine (ie dead weak) sense of smellWe Have No Bananas' was written by Leon Trotsky's nephew. '' Added ''In the 18th Century, King George I declared all pigeon droppings to that a blunt sense be the property of taste and Ithe Crown''m left saying . I know what hardly think I like when I drink it, and that's itneed to say any more. Review over.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571241743</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stevyn ColganBerenson_How|title=Joined-up Thinking: How to Connect Everything to Everything ElseSpeak Emoji|author=Fred Benenson
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=I am in this book. And so therefore Emojis are you. So why donfun, and there't I like it quite as s so much as I should? To be more honest, neither to them than the smileys of us are in this book, although we could well days gone by ;) They can be. It is a trivia collection based on attesting the feeling that everything is linked to everything and everyone elselanguage unto themselves, if only you know how. Thus the chapters introduce us to item A, which is linked to item B, which relates to C, whose story is incomplete without Dthough, and so on and lo and behold, before you know it you're back at A, having had no idea where we were going.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230712207</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dr Robert Vanderplank|title=Uglier Than A Monkey's Armpit|rating=3.5|genre=Trivia|summary=Now I've always been one for delivering found that some members of the, ahem, older generation can find themselves a nice meaty insultlittle troubled by them. And if you think otherwise This book, then you're just a #####ing ******** of a !!!!!!!!!!, with a &%&%&% sounds perfect for anyone who needs a $$$$$$. But I've been brought up little help with the usual British malaise when it comes to learning foreign languages, and so beyond knowing that this 'language'Leche!'' is a bit meaty in Spanish, I could not help to cuss and swear like whatever other languages might have for trooper.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330464485</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Hodgkinson Lloyd_3rd|title=QI: The Third Book of Idle PleasuresGeneral Ignorance|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin and Andrew Hunter Murray
|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=We've all heard the clichés about modern lifeWell done, Hartlepool. You know – technology was meant to free us from drudgery. Instead wedidn've become its slaves t put on trial and work longer hours kill a shipwrecked monkey thinking it a Napoleonic spy – any more than the several other places thusly accused everdid. We're overloaded with means of communication but few of us know our neighboursWell done, Italy, etcfor making the ciabatta such a global phenomenon it seems like a traditional foodstuff, etceven if it was invented in 1982. On hearing theseAnd well done to that famous ice hockey player, most of us shrug and carry on with our busyCharles Darwin – who was probably playing it, seeing as it was a British invention, busy liveslong before the Canadians ever realised they might be good at it. But now and thenYes, something reminds us for a book that spends a lot of who its time saying 'this didn’t happen,' 'hoojamaflip didn't do this,' and what we are. This delightful'that was never thus', unassuming book is it's one of those thingsthat's incredibly easy to be most positive about.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091923328</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Georgina PhillipsTaggart_New|title=Ouch! Extreme Feats of Human EnduranceNew Words for Old: Recycling Our Language for the Modern World|ratingauthor=4.5Caroline Taggart|genre=Trivia|summaryrating=Everything from Shackleton to Ellen MacArthur, by way of the Japanese word for fried rice-field grasshopper, and 32 hour long after dinner speeches3. ''Ouch!'' contains fascinating trivia on every page that children will love to repeat back to you at length.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330454056</amazonuk>}} {{newreview |title=Any Question Answered|author=AQA 633365
|genre=Trivia
}}
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