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[[Category:Trivia|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Trivia]]
==Trivia==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel Vreeman
|title=Don't Swallow Your Gum
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary='''BANG'''. That's the sound 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>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Justin Scroggie
|title=Eye Spy: Uncovering the Secrets of the World Around You
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Signs are everywhere. I wasn't really one of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until the day I was driven past a pair of speed regulation signs, positioned at the exit end of a one-way street but facing the illegal way up it. Not all signs, of course, are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visible, which is where this pictorial guide to countless coded messages, signifiers and other similar factoids comes in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994487</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matt Allen
|title=Where Are They Now? - Rediscovering Over 100 Football Stars of the 70s and 80s
|rating=4.5
|genre=Sport
|summary=This looks like some people's worst idea of a book, ever. Trivia, nostalgia, football, and lists - does it get more masculine? 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905156421</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Philip Ardagh
|title=Philip Ardagh's Book of Howlers, Blunders and Random Mistakery
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=There's nought so queer as folk. From the idiot who broke into a car without realising his name and date of birth were clearly seen on his tattoo on CCTV, to the people who ordered someone to paint clothes on all the people in the Sistine Chapel - before others came along who decided the original had been better, and the people who dismissed The Beatles as never likely to make a name for themselves. We have long been a race of idiots.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330471724</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Marlene Wagman-Geller
|title=Once Again to Zelda: Fifty Great Dedications and Their Stories
|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), one of the remaining difficulties must be deciding who you should dedicate the tome to. Assuming it's no Oscar speech, and you can't thank the world and his dog, you have to narrow it down somewhat and select that special person whose name wins pride of place on the first page. Do you then go with something cryptic and intriguing, or apparently banal and blatantly obvious? I'm sure most readers don't even look at the dedications in most books, but if you did, would you understand the significance of them? Would something saying ''To my wife'' make you look twice, or would that seem like a reasonably common way to dedicate a book? In ''Once Again, To Zelda'' you can discover the stories you don't know behind the stories you may well, as the author delves into the detail behind ''Fifty Great Dedications''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330511351</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mick O'Hare
|title=How To Make A Tornado
|rating=4
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Another year, another must-read book from the New Scientist. We've been here before with [[Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? by Mick O'Hare|polar bears]], [[Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? by Mick O'Hare|penguins]] and [[How To Fossilise Your Hamster by Mick O'Hare|hamsters]]. Now it's time to turn our attention to how to make a tornado, and all the other crazy experiments that scientists have done over the years.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682878</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David O'Doherty, Claudia O'Doherty and Mike Ahern
|title=100 Facts About Pandas
|rating=3.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Sometimes the title says it all - this is a book with 100 facts about pandas. Sometimes you need to note the author too - David O'Doherty won an Edinburgh Comedy Award, so this is a book of a 100 silly and untrue facts about pandas.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086324</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Vivian Cook
|title=It's All in a Word
|rating=3.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Ah, the English language. That sine qua non, the prima facie lingua franca of the world. Prima inter pares when it comes to taking influence and words from other tongues, and responding in kind, to the chagrin of the French. We all use it, and in this day and age we can update an internet dictionary overnight to absorb all the neologisms, like "iPhone"; we can put the entire output of an author into a computer 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 worse.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680069</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tadg Farrington
|title=The Average Life of the Average Person
|rating=5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Back in school, we would often bemoan the idea of 'average', saying that like being 'normal', if there were such a thing, who would even want to be it? There could be nothing worse, we thought, than being average. Except...there is by definition a whole lot worse than 'average' – the exact same amount that is better than average, in fact. And that was the problem.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086235</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robin Laurance
|title=Just What I Always Wanted: Unwrapping the World's Most Curious Birthday Presents
|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Is there anything more suited to a trivia book, yet so much thought over, and serious, than the birthday present? It might be something completely throw-away, but mean a lot to the receiver. It might have cost the giver an awful amount of money, and be disregarded by the person expected to accept it. And if you think the givings and takings of the rich and famous are sheer trivia, just think about the number of sociologists and historians who would jump at the chance to explore, say, Hitler's given gifts.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847246168</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=AQA 63336
|title=Brilliant Answers
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Do you need an answer to a question? Have you got your mobile handy? Right – text that question to 63336, the Home of Any Question Answered, and for £1 you'll have the answer within minutes. It might seem like magic but it's actually the result of a lot of people being on hand to research your problem and give you the solution. Over the years 1.7 million people have asked over fifteen million questions and 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 the year.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682169</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tracey Turner
|title=The Book of Big Excuses
|rating=3.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Ah, we've all made excuses at one time or another. We've all done things we shouldn't have done, then when caught out given a reason for it. Perhaps we've even given excuses as stylish as Zambian tennis player Lighton Ndefwayl, who said of his opponent: "[He] is a stupid man and a hopeless player. He has a huge nose and is cross-eyed. Girls hate him. He beat me because my jockstrap was too tight and because when he serves he farts, 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 collection.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340970553</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matthew Cole
|title=Will Work for Nuts
|rating=3.5
|genre=Pets
|summary=The intrepid adventurer faces a most daunting challenge. Girding his loins in anticipation of achieving his goal, he leaps into action, hell-bent only on success, never fearing the inherent danger. With death-defying stunts and leaps aplenty, he needs to use any vehicles he finds in his path, untold balancing skills, nerve-racking whippy plastic stick things, and an awful lot more. Finally his lithe, muscular frame lands near his target, and he sits back and eats his nuts.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007279574</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Niall Edworthy and Petra Cramsie
|title=The Optimist's/pessimist's Handbook
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=With a publication date in early November, the passing Christmas shopper is clearly the target for this book. ''The Optimist's/ Pessimist's Handbook'' isn't a self-help book, but a compendium of enlightening snippets. Off the shelf, I think you'd know immediately which relative or friend might enjoy receiving it. So I suggest eschewing Amazon in favour of a real-life bookshop, not least because there will be a shelf full of similar books for a surreptitious and delightful half-hour's browse before choosing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561411X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Danny Danziger
|title=The Thingummy
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Oh look, a trivia book. I don't think even I realised quite how many were published in the run up to every Christmas, but there are a lot. There is probably a name for the phenomenon.
There is a name for that bit between your nose and your lips – below your nasal septum comes the philtrum. There's a correct scientific name for the tummy-grumbling noises we make when things leave our stomach for lower down. Heck, there's even a scientific name for those circular grooves on top of a Frisbee.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561456X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Justin Scroggie
|title=Tic-tac Teddy Bears and Teardrop Tattoos
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Signs are everywhere. I wasn't really one of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until the day I was driven past a pair of speed regulation signs, positioned at the exit end of a one-way street but facing the illegal way up it. Not all signs, of course, are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visible, which is where this pictorial guide to countless coded messages, signifiers and other similar factoids comes in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340976489</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Angus Cargill (Editor)
|title=Hang the DJ: An Alternative Book of Music Lists
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Ah, the music list... balm to pop obsessives (see Nick Hornby's ''High Fidelity''), makeweight of copy-starved magazine editors, and staple of self-indulgent writers (see ''31 Songs'', also by Nick Hornby). The contributors to this volume fall mainly into the latter category. No fewer than thirty five of them supply their musical top tens, ranging from the fanatical to the frivolous, via the frankly frightening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571241727</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sam Jordison
|title=Sod That!: 103 Things Not To Do Before You Die
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Without sounding like a braggart, I have done some pleasant things in life. I've caught the first bus up to Machu Picchu, and shared the sunrise with only the llamas. I've eaten strange things while on a full fortnight tour of Iceland. But closer to home, were I to have a list, there would be many things left on it – I've been nowhere near Bath, or York; I've never seen the film ET, which for a man of my age is something of a claim to fame.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409100553</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ian Crofton
|title=History Without the Boring Bits
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=I was never one for history, and in fact left the dregs of a history teacher in tatters when I scraped through with a D. Still, history is an odd thing – written by the winners of course, and annoyingly biased in my mind towards the plain. There's no real reason to remember the order of Henry VIII's six wives, but we can only relish the one credited with polydactylism, a third nipple and whatnot (the second one, in fact – whoever that was).
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847243746</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kathleen Burk and Michael Bywater
|title=Is This Bottle Corked? The Secret Life of Wine
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Now, I'm the first person to admit I am not a wine buff. I know a lot more now than I did before my current relationship, but she is right to say I have a very masculine (ie dead weak) sense of smell. Added to that a blunt sense of taste and I'm left saying I know what I like when I drink it, and that's it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571241743</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stevyn Colgan
|title=Joined-up Thinking: How to Connect Everything to Everything Else
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=I am in this book. And so therefore are you. So why don't I like it quite as much as I should?
To be more honest, neither of us are in this book, although we could well be. It is a trivia collection based on attesting the feeling that everything is linked to everything and everyone else, 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 D, 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 a nice meaty insult. And if you think otherwise then you're just a #####ing ******** of a !!!!!!!!!!, with a &%&%&% for a $$$$$$. But I've been brought up with the usual British malaise when it comes to learning foreign languages, and so beyond knowing that ''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>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tom Hodgkinson
|title=The Book of Idle Pleasures
|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=We've all heard the clichés about modern life. You know – technology was meant to free us from drudgery. Instead we've become its slaves and work longer hours than ever. We're overloaded with means of communication but few of us know our neighbours, etc, etc. On hearing these, most of us shrug and carry on with our busy, busy lives. But now and then, something reminds us of who and what we are. This delightful, unassuming book is one of those things.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091923328</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Georgina Phillips
|title=Ouch! Extreme Feats of Human Endurance
|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Everything from Shackleton to Ellen MacArthur, by way of the Japanese word for fried rice-field grasshopper, and 32 hour long after dinner speeches. ''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 63336
|genre=Trivia
|rating=3
|summary=Did you know that if you have a question, any question, you can text AQA on 63336 and their team of dedicated researchers will find the answer and text it back to you? It will cost you just £1 and AQA have now answered over nine million questions. That's a lot of questions and the answers didn't just disappear into the ether. AQA have them all stored away.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680824</amazonuk>
}}
[[Category:New Reviews|Trivia]]
==Trivia==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel Vreeman
|title=Don't Swallow Your Gum
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary='''BANG'''. That's the sound 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>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Justin Scroggie
|title=Eye Spy: Uncovering the Secrets of the World Around You
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Signs are everywhere. I wasn't really one of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until the day I was driven past a pair of speed regulation signs, positioned at the exit end of a one-way street but facing the illegal way up it. Not all signs, of course, are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visible, which is where this pictorial guide to countless coded messages, signifiers and other similar factoids comes in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994487</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matt Allen
|title=Where Are They Now? - Rediscovering Over 100 Football Stars of the 70s and 80s
|rating=4.5
|genre=Sport
|summary=This looks like some people's worst idea of a book, ever. Trivia, nostalgia, football, and lists - does it get more masculine? 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905156421</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Philip Ardagh
|title=Philip Ardagh's Book of Howlers, Blunders and Random Mistakery
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=There's nought so queer as folk. From the idiot who broke into a car without realising his name and date of birth were clearly seen on his tattoo on CCTV, to the people who ordered someone to paint clothes on all the people in the Sistine Chapel - before others came along who decided the original had been better, and the people who dismissed The Beatles as never likely to make a name for themselves. We have long been a race of idiots.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330471724</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Marlene Wagman-Geller
|title=Once Again to Zelda: Fifty Great Dedications and Their Stories
|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), one of the remaining difficulties must be deciding who you should dedicate the tome to. Assuming it's no Oscar speech, and you can't thank the world and his dog, you have to narrow it down somewhat and select that special person whose name wins pride of place on the first page. Do you then go with something cryptic and intriguing, or apparently banal and blatantly obvious? I'm sure most readers don't even look at the dedications in most books, but if you did, would you understand the significance of them? Would something saying ''To my wife'' make you look twice, or would that seem like a reasonably common way to dedicate a book? In ''Once Again, To Zelda'' you can discover the stories you don't know behind the stories you may well, as the author delves into the detail behind ''Fifty Great Dedications''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330511351</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mick O'Hare
|title=How To Make A Tornado
|rating=4
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Another year, another must-read book from the New Scientist. We've been here before with [[Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? by Mick O'Hare|polar bears]], [[Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? by Mick O'Hare|penguins]] and [[How To Fossilise Your Hamster by Mick O'Hare|hamsters]]. Now it's time to turn our attention to how to make a tornado, and all the other crazy experiments that scientists have done over the years.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682878</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David O'Doherty, Claudia O'Doherty and Mike Ahern
|title=100 Facts About Pandas
|rating=3.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Sometimes the title says it all - this is a book with 100 facts about pandas. Sometimes you need to note the author too - David O'Doherty won an Edinburgh Comedy Award, so this is a book of a 100 silly and untrue facts about pandas.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086324</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Vivian Cook
|title=It's All in a Word
|rating=3.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Ah, the English language. That sine qua non, the prima facie lingua franca of the world. Prima inter pares when it comes to taking influence and words from other tongues, and responding in kind, to the chagrin of the French. We all use it, and in this day and age we can update an internet dictionary overnight to absorb all the neologisms, like "iPhone"; we can put the entire output of an author into a computer 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 worse.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680069</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tadg Farrington
|title=The Average Life of the Average Person
|rating=5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Back in school, we would often bemoan the idea of 'average', saying that like being 'normal', if there were such a thing, who would even want to be it? There could be nothing worse, we thought, than being average. Except...there is by definition a whole lot worse than 'average' – the exact same amount that is better than average, in fact. And that was the problem.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086235</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robin Laurance
|title=Just What I Always Wanted: Unwrapping the World's Most Curious Birthday Presents
|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Is there anything more suited to a trivia book, yet so much thought over, and serious, than the birthday present? It might be something completely throw-away, but mean a lot to the receiver. It might have cost the giver an awful amount of money, and be disregarded by the person expected to accept it. And if you think the givings and takings of the rich and famous are sheer trivia, just think about the number of sociologists and historians who would jump at the chance to explore, say, Hitler's given gifts.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847246168</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=AQA 63336
|title=Brilliant Answers
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Do you need an answer to a question? Have you got your mobile handy? Right – text that question to 63336, the Home of Any Question Answered, and for £1 you'll have the answer within minutes. It might seem like magic but it's actually the result of a lot of people being on hand to research your problem and give you the solution. Over the years 1.7 million people have asked over fifteen million questions and 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 the year.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682169</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tracey Turner
|title=The Book of Big Excuses
|rating=3.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Ah, we've all made excuses at one time or another. We've all done things we shouldn't have done, then when caught out given a reason for it. Perhaps we've even given excuses as stylish as Zambian tennis player Lighton Ndefwayl, who said of his opponent: "[He] is a stupid man and a hopeless player. He has a huge nose and is cross-eyed. Girls hate him. He beat me because my jockstrap was too tight and because when he serves he farts, 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 collection.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340970553</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matthew Cole
|title=Will Work for Nuts
|rating=3.5
|genre=Pets
|summary=The intrepid adventurer faces a most daunting challenge. Girding his loins in anticipation of achieving his goal, he leaps into action, hell-bent only on success, never fearing the inherent danger. With death-defying stunts and leaps aplenty, he needs to use any vehicles he finds in his path, untold balancing skills, nerve-racking whippy plastic stick things, and an awful lot more. Finally his lithe, muscular frame lands near his target, and he sits back and eats his nuts.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007279574</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Niall Edworthy and Petra Cramsie
|title=The Optimist's/pessimist's Handbook
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=With a publication date in early November, the passing Christmas shopper is clearly the target for this book. ''The Optimist's/ Pessimist's Handbook'' isn't a self-help book, but a compendium of enlightening snippets. Off the shelf, I think you'd know immediately which relative or friend might enjoy receiving it. So I suggest eschewing Amazon in favour of a real-life bookshop, not least because there will be a shelf full of similar books for a surreptitious and delightful half-hour's browse before choosing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561411X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Danny Danziger
|title=The Thingummy
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Oh look, a trivia book. I don't think even I realised quite how many were published in the run up to every Christmas, but there are a lot. There is probably a name for the phenomenon.
There is a name for that bit between your nose and your lips – below your nasal septum comes the philtrum. There's a correct scientific name for the tummy-grumbling noises we make when things leave our stomach for lower down. Heck, there's even a scientific name for those circular grooves on top of a Frisbee.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561456X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Justin Scroggie
|title=Tic-tac Teddy Bears and Teardrop Tattoos
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Signs are everywhere. I wasn't really one of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until the day I was driven past a pair of speed regulation signs, positioned at the exit end of a one-way street but facing the illegal way up it. Not all signs, of course, are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visible, which is where this pictorial guide to countless coded messages, signifiers and other similar factoids comes in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340976489</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Angus Cargill (Editor)
|title=Hang the DJ: An Alternative Book of Music Lists
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Ah, the music list... balm to pop obsessives (see Nick Hornby's ''High Fidelity''), makeweight of copy-starved magazine editors, and staple of self-indulgent writers (see ''31 Songs'', also by Nick Hornby). The contributors to this volume fall mainly into the latter category. No fewer than thirty five of them supply their musical top tens, ranging from the fanatical to the frivolous, via the frankly frightening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571241727</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sam Jordison
|title=Sod That!: 103 Things Not To Do Before You Die
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Without sounding like a braggart, I have done some pleasant things in life. I've caught the first bus up to Machu Picchu, and shared the sunrise with only the llamas. I've eaten strange things while on a full fortnight tour of Iceland. But closer to home, were I to have a list, there would be many things left on it – I've been nowhere near Bath, or York; I've never seen the film ET, which for a man of my age is something of a claim to fame.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409100553</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ian Crofton
|title=History Without the Boring Bits
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=I was never one for history, and in fact left the dregs of a history teacher in tatters when I scraped through with a D. Still, history is an odd thing – written by the winners of course, and annoyingly biased in my mind towards the plain. There's no real reason to remember the order of Henry VIII's six wives, but we can only relish the one credited with polydactylism, a third nipple and whatnot (the second one, in fact – whoever that was).
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847243746</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kathleen Burk and Michael Bywater
|title=Is This Bottle Corked? The Secret Life of Wine
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Now, I'm the first person to admit I am not a wine buff. I know a lot more now than I did before my current relationship, but she is right to say I have a very masculine (ie dead weak) sense of smell. Added to that a blunt sense of taste and I'm left saying I know what I like when I drink it, and that's it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571241743</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stevyn Colgan
|title=Joined-up Thinking: How to Connect Everything to Everything Else
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=I am in this book. And so therefore are you. So why don't I like it quite as much as I should?
To be more honest, neither of us are in this book, although we could well be. It is a trivia collection based on attesting the feeling that everything is linked to everything and everyone else, 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 D, 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 a nice meaty insult. And if you think otherwise then you're just a #####ing ******** of a !!!!!!!!!!, with a &%&%&% for a $$$$$$. But I've been brought up with the usual British malaise when it comes to learning foreign languages, and so beyond knowing that ''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>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tom Hodgkinson
|title=The Book of Idle Pleasures
|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=We've all heard the clichés about modern life. You know – technology was meant to free us from drudgery. Instead we've become its slaves and work longer hours than ever. We're overloaded with means of communication but few of us know our neighbours, etc, etc. On hearing these, most of us shrug and carry on with our busy, busy lives. But now and then, something reminds us of who and what we are. This delightful, unassuming book is one of those things.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091923328</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Georgina Phillips
|title=Ouch! Extreme Feats of Human Endurance
|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Everything from Shackleton to Ellen MacArthur, by way of the Japanese word for fried rice-field grasshopper, and 32 hour long after dinner speeches. ''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 63336
|genre=Trivia
|rating=3
|summary=Did you know that if you have a question, any question, you can text AQA on 63336 and their team of dedicated researchers will find the answer and text it back to you? It will cost you just £1 and AQA have now answered over nine million questions. That's a lot of questions and the answers didn't just disappear into the ether. AQA have them all stored away.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680824</amazonuk>
}}