Difference between revisions of "Newest Trivia Reviews"

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[[Category:Trivia|*]]
 
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{{newreview
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<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
|author=Caroline Taggart
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{{Frontpage
|title=New Words for Old: Recycling Our Language for the Modern World
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|isbn=1780724047
|rating=3.5
+
|title=A Dictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs
|genre=Trivia
+
|author=Peter J Conradi
|summary=I never declare myself off to have a 'kip', as I recall reading that it originally meant the same amount of sleeping – and activity – as happens in a whorehouse.  The word 'cleave' can mean either to split apart, or to connect together, and I'm sure there's another word that has completely changed its meaning from one end of things to another although I can't remember which.  Certainly, ''literally'' has tried its best to make a full switch through rampant misuse.  Such is the nature of our language – fluid both in spelling until moderately recently, and definitely in meaning.  This attempt at capturing a corner of the trivia/words/novelty market is interested in such tales from the etymological world – the way we have adapted old words for our own, modern and perhaps very different usages.  Certainly, having browsed it over a week, I can declare it a pretty strong attempt.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782434720</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Steve Tribe
 
|title=The All New University Challenge Quiz Book: Questions, Answers, Facts, Figures and everything in between
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=[Cue theme music.  Lights up on presenter, who waffles on about establishments providing contestants – De Montfort University, local pub, family unit.  Contestants don't, for once, introduce themselves as it's probably a given that they know each other.  Contestants imbibe nervous sips of 'water', and settle back.]  ''You all know the rules, so let's not waste time – here's your first starter for ten.''
 
 
 
Yes, this book throws no punches and attempts to put you in the spotlight of one of the nation's most superlative televisual institutions – but does it manage it?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184949701X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gabrielle Balkan and Sol Linero
 
|title=The 50 States: Explore the U.S.A. with 50 fact-filled maps!
 
|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary= I've often shouted at people on UK quiz programmes for their ignorance of geography about their nation.  People just don't seem to have learnt about or been to other areas of the place they call home.  But while they get little sympathy from me when they lose the programme's cash prize, I can imagine that it would be much harder for them if they actually lived in a large country, such as the USA. 50 whole states of different size, all with a rich history of their own, their own famous places and their own noted people – the facts involved in absorbing all that's relevant would take a lot of research – or, paradoxically, this handy child-friendly book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847807119</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rob Temple
 
|title=Very British Problems Abroad
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
+
|genre=Pets
|summary=Meet, if you haven't already, the phenomenon of the Very British ProblemIn this format they're in pithy little comments (of, ooh, about 140 characters in length, for some reason…) and detail the minor things in life that we like nothing more than to inflate to a major factor of lifeThey can involve manners, staring at things until they mend themselves, hitting things ditto, or the fact that nobody apart from you and I know how to queue properlyAnd if the idea hits the world outside our shores, then – well, you certainly have a book full of content regarding our attitude and ineptitude abroad.
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|summary=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 interesting or important - and probably both, I was expecting a massive tomeBut ''A Dictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs'' is actually ''a rich compendium of the world's most significant and beloved dogs'' and it's certainly a rich treasure troveWe begin with Peter J Conradi's four collies: Cloudy, Sky. Bradley and MaxThey're consecutive rather than simultaneous dogs, but what comes over is Conradi's love for each and every one of them.  I knew that I was in safe hands.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751558494</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kevin Flude
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|author=Don Behrend
|title=Divorced, Beheaded, Died...: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks
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|title=Copernicus! What Have You Done?: ...and Other Interesting Questions
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
 
|summary=History lives.  Proof of that sweeping statement can be had in this book, and in the fact that while it only reached the grand old age of six, it has had the dust brushed off it and has been reprinted – and while the present royal incumbent it ends its main narrative with has not changed, other things have.  This has quietly been updated to include the reburial of Richard III in Leicester, and seems to have been rereleased at a perfectly apposite time, as only the week before I write these words the Queen has surpassed all those who came before her as our longest serving ruler.  Such details may be trivia to some – especially those of us of a more royalist bent – and important facts to others.  The perfect balance of that coupling – trivia and detail – is what makes this book so worthwhile.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782434631</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dr Gareth Moore
 
|title=Clever Commuter: Puzzles, Tests and Problems to Solve on Your Journey
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=The week before I reviewed this book I saw a newspaper article that said that so-called brain-training apps are a waste of time, that they merely replace what we should be doing anyway to keep our grey cells active (multi-tasking, observing, REAL LIFE etc). This is the puzzle book version of a brain training app, and so with all those electronic titles on the market it already had opposition, even before that news came in. But let's face it – who on earth would risk the science being wrong on this occasion? Surely this kind of book should be an inherently essential purchase?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782433953</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=There Are Tittles in This Title: The Weird World of Words
 
|author=Mitchell Symons
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=I love spending time with Mitchell Symons books.  If you don't know him, he's written this book, that book, and a book actually called ''This Book'' and a book actually called ''That Book''. He knows his trivia, he gets a lot of info on the page, and can really come across at the best of times as a convivial host. So pair him, as has happened here, with the weird and wonderful world of words and only great things could be expected.  Unfortunately, then, only just above average things were expected.
+
|summary= Hello! Would this review be okay if I simply said ''I LOVED THIS GLORIOUS LITTLE BOOK AND SO WILL YOU. FIN''?! Because I did. And you will.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782432574</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1789016770
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=An Unkindness of Ravens: A Book of Collective Nouns
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|isbn=Lloyd_1423
|author=Chloe Rhodes
+
|title=1,423 QI Facts to Bowl You Over
 +
|author=John Lloyd, James Harkin and Anne Miller
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=We have all heard of a ''Pride of Lions'', a ''Herd of Cattle'' and a ''Flock of Birds'', but what about the less common, long forgotten collective nouns, like: a ''Bloat of Hippopotami'', a ''Mutation of Thrushes'', a ''Herd of Harlots'' or a ''Superfluity of Nuns''? If you are interested in the English language and the origin of words, then you will really enjoy browsing this book.
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|summary=You 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 more 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.  ''Only 1% of people who buy marmalade are under the age of 28.  Treadmills were once the harshest form of punishment after the death penalty.  Naked mole-rats can survive for 18 minutes without oxygen by turning themselves into plants.'' And the whole of page 52.  There, job done – and the creators of this book certainly have done their job to perfection.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782433082</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Who Invented The Stepover? (And Other Crucial Football Conundrums)
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|isbn=Brightside_101
|author=Paul Simpson and Uli Hesse
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|title=101 Things to Take the Stress Out of Christmas
 +
|author=Robin Snow
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Sport
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|genre=Trivia
|summary=In 1982, second division Charlton Athletic staged an unlikely transfer coup by signing former European Footballer of the Year Allan Simonsen. If the thought of the Danish superstar forsaking the glamour of Barcelona for south east London seemed unlikely then consider that Simonsen had previously faked his own death during a World Cup qualifier.
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|summary=For many years one of my guiding principles has been that the C word should not be mentioned until the beginning of December but, unfortunately, C seems to be coming earlier each year and there are even shops where it never ceases to be imminent, which ramps up the stress levels considerably. So, a book which promises 101 things to take the stress out of C seemed like a good idea. What’s it about? Tips like putting the sprouts on to boil in November or joining a religion which avoids the celebration altogether? Well, not quite.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250065</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Outraged of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle England
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|isbn=Brightside_Worry
|author=Nigel Cawthorne
+
|title=101 Things to do instead of worrying about the world
 +
|author=Felicity Brightside
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=It was ever thus…  cyclists go too fast, without using a hooter or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere one looks, and no public conveniences; people pretend to have qualifications and degrees they haven't rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should be indoors already, cooking for their working menfolk…  It's a very clever idea to show exactly what is behind the 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' tag, and as a book to be shelved alongside those with the wackier letters sent to the ''Daily Telegraph'', these selections from the Royal town's press itself make a great eye-opener to the complaints and complainants of Kent.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Dedicated to...: The Forgotten Friendships, Hidden Stories and Lost Loves found in Second-hand Books
 
|author=W B Gooderham
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=I have found many strange and unusual things in second-hand bookshops.  I have done one or two strange and unusual things in them as well, but that's a different story.  Twice now I have managed to find a second-hand book, completely signed and dedicated by the author, yet discarded by the recipient, and have been able to present the author with the edition at hand and get it re-dedicated.  (If I'm not mistaken, the discarders were a neighbouring babysitter, and a teacher of the author's children.)  I'll admit that's rarefied, however, and on the whole the scribble you find in second-hand books is from the person who bought it, and gave it as a gift, not the person who wrote it.  But even so, the dedication of the donor can be immensely fascinating and open to all kinds of interpretation, as these examples show perfectly clear.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593072847</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mark Forsyth
 
|title=The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=This book just had to be called ''The Horologicon''. Originally it meant a daily diary of devotion for a priest or monk.  Our author knows it is a rare word these days and gives it to his modern Book of Hours, which is a guide to similarly obsolete, charming or unusually whimsical words set out, not as others do, as a dictionary, but in essays for every waking hour of the day, and the subject they're most likely to cover.
+
|summary=I don't think that I've ever been quite so worried about the state of the world as I have been of late - and I speak as someone who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and various other apocalyptic moments. It almost certainly comes down to a lack of confidence in the people who are supposedly in charge, whether it be from a political point of view or of our stewardship of this planet we call home. But what can be done about it? We've tried voting, arguing and demonstrating. Now we're down to pulling up the drawbridge and doing our best to think about something else.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848314159</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Arthur Plotnik
+
|isbn=Lloyd 1342
|title=Better Than Great
+
|title=1,342 QI Facts To Leave You Flabbergasted
 +
|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin and Anne Miller
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Better Than Great is a bravura, ingeniously inventive, roaringly intelligent thesaurus of praise and acclaim - oh, momma! Where has this paean-worthy, distressingly excellent book, which certainly goes the whole hog, been all my life?
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|summary=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 this series has had the equivalent online version for the sources, so every page is replicated with the due links you need to search for proof of their statements.  No, the game is Six Degrees of Separation.  And they're so good at it, they can do most things in three.  So in just three standalone, but thematically linked, phrases, you can get from how to make the sound of an Orc army for ''Lord of the Rings'' films to record-breaking nipple hair.  From illicit wartime barbers in Italy to American founding father bedroom arrangements, is only three steps – and the path carries on to reach that erstwhile novice stand-up, Ronald Reagan, in two more.  It's only two jumps between Donald Trump and Charles Darwin, disconcertingly.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0285641336</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Joel Levy
+
|isbn=Lloyd_1411
|title=Why?
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|title=1,411 QI Facts To Knock You Sideways
|rating=5
+
|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Why does the Titanic float but a brick sink? And that water they’re sinking or floating in, why is it wet? And what colour is it, ‘cos it ain’t clear? These questions and many more are answered in this book which may not be a new concept but which is executed extremely well.
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|summary=Handsome is as handsome does. And you know what else benefits from being curt and succinct, alongside old housewives' saws like that one? Trivia. I always thought the QI books such as this one to be handsome things – perfectly presenting trivia, four (on rare occasion, three) statements to the page, in a very nice little cubical hardback. Now they're being represented in paperback, but you know what? They're still handsome things.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843179512</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=David Astle
+
|isbn=Lloyd_1339
|title=Puzzled
+
|title=1,339 QI Facts To Make Your Jaw Drop
|rating=4
+
|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Words are wonderful enough when they’re just telling you things straight up, but who can resist them when they’re really being playful? Not David Astle, the author of this new title that blows the lid on it all with what he calls 'secrets and clues from a life in words'.
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|summary=A spermologer ''is a collector of trivia''. Just that sentence tells you a lot – we're once more in the realm of the curt, succinct approach to the world's information and oddities. It says more, however – beyond the weirdness of the word is the obvious necessity for the word to exist – without people that could be called collectors of trivia you would not need the term. And rest assured, there are currently few people that stand as better spermologers than the chief QI elves.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685427</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Joseph Piercy
+
|isbn=Metcalf_Skedaddle
|title=The Story of English
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|title=From Skedaddle to Selfie: Words of the Generation
|rating=3
+
|author=Allan Metcalf
 +
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=''The Story of English'' sets out to be a potted history of the influences that have shaped our language, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to LOLcats.com. Starting with the pre-Roman Celts and their Ogham alphabet, it goes crashing through fifteen hundred years of linguistic history at a terrific pace to end with an almost audible sigh of relief at the internet age.
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|summary=I 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 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 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 exception) in regular order.  I don't really hold much store by that, and I certainly didn't know we'd started one since the Millennials – who the heck decides such things, for one?  ''Somebody must have put out an order'', as someone here says of something else.  But in the same way as generations get defined by collective persons unknown, so do words – and those words are certainly a clue to what was important, predominant and of course spoken in each decade.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843178834</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Phil Daoust (editor)
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|isbn=Halliday_Cathedrals
|title=Write.
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|title=Cathedrals and Abbeys (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)
 +
|author=Stephen Halliday
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Reference
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|genre=Trivia
|summary=The Guardian newspaper has for some years now been publishing articles and interviews on how to write. Successful authors, agents and publishers have offered pearls of wisdom in the Guardian Masterclasses for genres as wide-ranging as travel writing, picture books and screenplays. Now their wisdom and their insights have been collected together in this slim volume which will intrigue both the readers and the writers among us.
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|summary=What makes a cathedral? It's not automatically the principal church of anywhere that is made a city – St Davids is a village of 2,000 people and wasn't always a city, but always had a cathedral, as did Chelmsford. It's not the seat of a bishop – Glasgow has the building but not the person, and hasn't had a bishop since 1690. It's not a minster – that's something completely different, and if you can understand the sign in the delightful Beverley Minster describing the difference, that I saw only the other month, you're a better man I, Gunga Din. Luckily this book doesn't touch on minsters much, and we can understand abbeys, so it's only the vast majority of this book that is saddled with the definition problem. It's clearly not a real problem, and those it does have are by-passable, for this successfully defines a cathedral as somewhere of major importance, fine trivia and greatly worthy of our attention.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085265328X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Nigel Fountain
+
|isbn=Bramley_Shakespeare
|title=Cliches: Avoid Them Like the Plague
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|title=The Shakespeare Trail
 +
|author=Zoe Bramley
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Cliché is such an awful word  with all its connotations of the trite, the hackneyed and the overused.  It's a word you'd hate to have associated with your writing, even if you produce nothing more public than a shopping list but for the benefit of the discerning reader Nigel Fountain has compiled a list in alphabetical order of these dreaded phrases.  I began reading, confident that I couldn't be caught out and then blushed when I realised that I'd just pointed out to someone that avoiding clichés wasn't rocket science. They agreed that it isn't brain surgery either.
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|summary=It has been 400 years since William Shakespeare, the man heralded as the greatest writer in the English language, and England's national poet, died. Shakespeare has made a profound mark on our culture and heritage, yet many aspects of his life remain in the shadows, and many places throughout England have forgotten their association with him. Here, Zoe Bramley takes the reader on a journey through hundreds of places associated with Shakespeare many whose connections will come as a surprise to most. Filled with intriguing tidbits of information about Shakespeare, Elizabethan England, and the places that she talks about, this is no mere travel guide.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843174863</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alison Maloney
 
|title=Bright Young Things
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=According to the summary I read of ''Bright Young Things'' before choosing the book to read, it 'takes a sweeping look at the changing world of the Jazz Age'. I was expecting it to be something of a narrative account of the Roaring Twenties in actual fact, it's set out as a collection of trivia about the decade. Similarly, the 'first person accounts' mentioned on the inside front cover are limited to two or three sentence quotes.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753540975</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=E Foley and B Coates
+
|isbn=Halliday_London
|title=Homework for Grown Ups
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|title=London (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)
 +
|author=Stephen Halliday
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=School days can sometimes seem like a very long time ago. You most likely spent 12 to 14 years of early life learning in a classroom, but how much can you remember? Sure, you can count, and you know your alphabet, but all those other lessons you had, how much can you really remember of those? If you want or need to remember back to your school lessons (to help your own children with their homework, to win pub quizzes, whatever the reason) then this book can help. Covering ten subjects from English and Maths to Science, Home Ec and History, it’s a crash course to refresh your knowledge – all those things you kinda know deep down, but at the same time have forgotten at least a little bit.
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|summary=What 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 WH Smith's branch? (This has nothing, of course, on Temple Bar, which has also been known to walk.)  Is it the people – the butchers [[Jack the Ripper: CSI: Whitechapel by John Bennett and Paul Begg|(Jack the Ripper)]], the bakers (or whoever set fire to the entire city from Pudding Lane) and the candlestick makers?  Is it the infrastructure, from the Underground, whose one-time boss got a medal from Stalin for his success, to the London Bridge itself, that in its own wanderlust means it's highly unlikely the Thames will freeze again?  However you define a city, London certainly has a lot going for it as regards weird and wonderful, and the trivial yet fascinating.  And, luckily for us, so has this book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540029</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler
+
|isbn=Holland_Railways
|title=The Question Book
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|title=Railways (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)
|rating=4.5
+
|author=Julian Holland
|genre=Lifestyle
+
|rating=3
|summary=
+
|genre=Trivia
Most of us have probably made at least one of those end-of-the-year lists of the best books, albums and parties we have been to in the previous twelve months. But can you, with some effort, locate the one you made in 1987? Have you ever constructed a graph of your ups and downs in a given period, and then decided to expand it by separating emotional, intellectual, sexual and financial aspects and colour coding them? Have you made a list of all your lovers, bosses or friends and then rated them from 1 to 10 on several dimensions each? Do you have one of the books that list ''100 things to do before you die'' or ''500 books to read in your life'' (and ticked off the ones you have done)? Did you ever spend a whole evening and half of a night filling in dubious 'personality' questionnaires on the Internet? Have you ever doodled something, decided that it beautifully expresses the deepest essence of your personality and then proceeded to draw such icons for all your friends?
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|summary=How and when did Laurel and Hardy replace the Duke of York (George VI)? They reopened the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway when peacetime resumed, at whose launch the latter had officiated before the War. What's the worst that can happen when you travel internationally and arrive on a 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 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. This book is designed to be an ideal source of quick articles and fun mini-essays for use in the smallest room.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685389</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Francesca Simon
+
|isbn=Donald_Words
|title=Horrid Henry's A - Z of Everything Horrid
+
|title=Words of a Feather
 +
|author=Graeme Donald
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry is a very popular little boy, although you might have a different opinion if you actually had to put up with his antics yourself. A slightly modernised embodiment of 'slugs and snails and puppy dogs' tails' concept of boyhood, Henry is naughtiness personified, combining irreverence for authority with a huge dose of gross-out crude humour that really appeals to the target readership of early primary school children.  Add a somewhat nostalgic, timeless feel, trademark alliterations, subtle (and not so subtle) digs at family dynamics, sibling rivalry and particularly at modern middle-class manners and sensibilities and you have a winning character and a base for a very successful edutainment franchise.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002260</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mark Forsyth
 
|title=The Etymologicon
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=I like words. Words are awesome. End of. But I also like trivia. I like knowing things that perhaps other people don’t, and helpfully passing on this knowledge to them. So a book about word-related trivia is just a win-win, and this one is so good I think we’ll have to call it a win-win-win.
+
|summary=Words of a Feather. The title alone suggests an engaging read about language, and the book 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. For example, the link between ''grotto'' and ''grotesque'' is easy to grasp: the word ''grotesque'' derives from unpleasant figures depicted in murals in Ancient Roman ''grottoes''. Other connections are just extraordinary, like the so-crazy-you-couldn't-make-it-up link between ''furnace'' and ''fornicate''. These two words date back to Ancient Rome when prostitutes took over the city's abandoned baking domes. And some connections are more than a little tenuous, seemingly just a collection of words banded together, as is the case with the ''insult'' and ''salmon'' pairing. One of my personal favourites: the Italian word ''schiavo'' for ''slave'' was used to summon or dismiss a slave; this word became corrupted to ''ciao'', a word the more well-heeled among us use instead of ''goodbye''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848313071</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Philip Ardagh
+
|isbn=Binney_English
|title=Philip Ardagh's Book of Kings, Queens, Emperors and Rotten Wart-Nosed Commoners
+
|title=The English Countryside (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)
|rating=3.5
+
|author=Ruth Binney
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=If you deem a good children's historical trivia book to be one that tells you, the adult, something they didn't know about historical trivia, then this is a good example.  I didn't know George V broke his pelvis when his horse fell on him, startled by some post-WWI huzzahs.  I didn't know Charles VI of France nearly got torched in some drunken bacchanal.  The length of time Charlemagne sat on a throne (over 400 whole years (even if he wasn't wholly whole all that time)) was news to me, as was the raffle that was held (more or less) for being the unknown soldier.  Therefore this is a good book for children and the adults willing to instill some historical trivia into them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330471732</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jolyon Fenwick and Marcus Husselby
 
|title=It Could Have Been Yours: The enlightened person's guide to the year's most desirable things
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=In a world of diamond-encrusted skulls, gold-leafed iPhones and luxury yachts ten a penny, of blingy shit (or should that be shitty bling?) it's a relief to know people are still spending money on unique one-offs that are more worthwhile.  The records for costliest photo, artwork, musical instrument and manuscript have all been broken in the twenty four months leading up to this book's release.  Our collators have scoured the press for those and other, similarly noteworthy auctions, and found what other people paid for what you didn't know you would have wanted given the money.
+
|summary=I live in the countryside and spend as much time as the weather will allow exploring it, so the chance to read Ruth Binney's ''The English Countryside'' was too good to be missedWe've met 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.  It's a hardback and beautifully presented but its the size of book that you slip into a pocket or handbag. Would it be rather superficial?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684900</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Stephanie Pain
+
|isbn=Lloyd_1234
|title=Farmer Buckley's Exploding Trousers
+
|title=1,234 QI Facts to Leave You Speechless
|rating=4.5
+
|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=The history of science is filled with many miraculous discoveries. ...It's also filled with exploding trousers, self-experimentation, a coachman's leg that becomes a museum piece and gas-powered radios. ''Farmer Buckley's Exploding Trousers'' regales us with fifty odd events on the way to scientific discovery. Part popular science book, part trivia, each article is a treat to read, either as a fun-sized nugget, or when reading from cover to cover.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685087</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Peter Gill
 
|title=42 - Douglas Adams' Amazingly Accurate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=A common question about Douglas Adams’ famous Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is just why Adams chose the number 42 as the answer to life, the universe and everything. In a charming trivia book, author Peter Gill takes 50 pages or so to look into the story of the book and the author and another 250 to find occurrences of 42 in the worlds of sport, crime, science and a wide range of other fields.
+
|summary=''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 occupational disease ever recorded in medical literature was 'chimney sweep's scrotum'.''  ''The song 'Yes, We Have No Bananas' was written by Leon Trotsky's nephew.''  ''In the 18th Century, King George I declared all pigeon droppings to be the property of the Crown''.  I hardly think I need to say any more.  Review over.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907616128</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Berenson_How
|author=Christopher Winn
+
|title=How to Speak Emoji
|title=I Never Knew That About the River Thames
+
|author=Fred Benenson
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Here are the remains of the building that could be said to have sired two important British royal dynasties.  Here is the place of ill-repute, where 'Rule Britannia' was premiered, and which also bizarrely saw a death by cricket ball that inspired the most famous gardens in the world. Here too is the largest lion in the world.  To where am I referring?  Well the answer is either the Thames valley, or this very book.
+
|summary=Emojis are fun, and there's so much more to them than the smileys of days gone by ;) They can be a language unto themselves, though, and I've found that some members of the, ahem, older generation can find themselves a little troubled by them. This book, then, sounds perfect for anyone who needs a little help with this 'language'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091933579</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Mick O'Hare
+
|isbn=Lloyd_3rd
|title=Why Can't Elephants Jump?
+
|title=QI: The Third Book of General Ignorance
 +
|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin and Andrew Hunter Murray
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
+
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Well? Why can't elephants jump? And while you're pondering that, think about why James Bond wanted his martini shaken, not stirred. Why is frozen milk yellow? Does eating bogeys do you any harm? What's the hole for in a ballpoint pen? How long a line could you draw with a single pencil? For answers to all these questions, and so many more, then do yourself a favour and pick up the latest collection from the New Scientist's [http://www.last-word.com/ Last Word column].
+
|summary=Well done, Hartlepool. You didn't put on trial and kill a shipwrecked monkey thinking it a Napoleonic spy – any more than the several other places thusly accused ever did. Well done, Italy, for making the ciabatta such a global phenomenon it seems like a traditional foodstuff, even if it was invented in 1982. And well done to that famous ice hockey player, Charles Darwin – who was probably playing it, seeing as it was a British invention, long before the Canadians ever realised they might be good at it. Yes, for a book that spends a lot of its time saying 'this didn’t happen,' 'hoojamaflip didn't do this,' and 'that was never thus', it's one that's incredibly easy to be most positive about.
 
 
Mick O'Hare was also kind enough to be [[The Interview: Bookbag Talks To Mick O'Hare|interviewed by Bookbag]].
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668398X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Phil Cousineau
+
|isbn=Taggart_New
|title=Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words
+
|title=New Words for Old: Recycling Our Language for the Modern World
 +
|author=Caroline Taggart
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|genre=Trivia
|summary=I formed a new, close friendship recently, and one of the first things I subtly dropped into things was the fact that I might use a different dictionary to other peopleProbably there was a subconscious thought forming that it would be better to make it known, in case I trod on any toes, said anything that didn't go down quite as well as I had plannedBut that's nothing compared to what Phil Cousineau has done here, for he has written his own dictionary, and got it published in a very nice, glossy, browsable formAlright, it's nothing like a complete dictionary, but everything is here in his own personal style - 250 main words, definitions, derivations and examples of useOh, and some modern-ish artworks as well.
+
|summary=I never declare myself off to have a 'kip', as I recall reading that it originally meant the same amount of sleeping – and activity – as happens in a whorehouseThe word 'cleave' can mean either to split apart or to connect together, and I'm sure there's another word that has completely changed its meaning from one end of things to another although I can't remember whichCertainly, ''literally'' has tried its best to make a full switch through rampant misuseSuch is the nature of our language – fluid both in spelling until moderately recently, and definitely in meaningThis attempt at capturing a corner of the trivia/words/novelty market is interested in such tales from the etymological world – the way we have adapted old words for our own, modern and perhaps very different usages.  Certainly, having browsed it over a week, I can declare it a pretty strong attempt.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1573444006</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Andrews
 
|title=The Economist Book of Isms
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|summary=I'm assuming all readers of this book, and this review, will know the meanings of the words racism, atheism and Communism. But how about Orphism? Nestorianism? Vorticism? Or the exact difference between egoism, egotism, and egocentrism? I'll confess to ignorance on all of that second trio of words before reading this book, but was fascinated to find out what they were. (Orphism is a religion originating in 6th or 7th century BC Greece based on the poems of Orpheus, who returned from Hades. I'll leave you to find out the definitions of the other two yourself!) Similarly, I was aware of all three of that final trilogy, but am not sure I even knew there '''was''' a difference, let alone that I'd have come close to being able to actually define them all as this volume does.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682983</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
Move on to [[Newest True Crime Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 15:36, 2 September 2020

1780724047.jpg

Review of

A Dictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs by Peter J Conradi

4star.jpg Pets

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 interesting or important - and probably both, I was expecting a massive tome. But A Dictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs is actually a rich compendium of the world's most significant and beloved dogs and it's certainly a rich treasure trove. We begin with Peter J Conradi's four collies: Cloudy, Sky. Bradley and Max. They're consecutive rather than simultaneous dogs, but what comes over is Conradi's love for each and every one of them. I knew that I was in safe hands. Full Review

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Review of

Copernicus! What Have You Done?: ...and Other Interesting Questions by Don Behrend

4.5star.jpg Trivia

Hello! Would this review be okay if I simply said I LOVED THIS GLORIOUS LITTLE BOOK AND SO WILL YOU. FIN?! Because I did. And you will. Full Review

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Review of

1,423 QI Facts to Bowl You Over by John Lloyd, James Harkin and Anne Miller

5star.jpg Trivia

You 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 more 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. Only 1% of people who buy marmalade are under the age of 28. Treadmills were once the harshest form of punishment after the death penalty. Naked mole-rats can survive for 18 minutes without oxygen by turning themselves into plants. And the whole of page 52. There, job done – and the creators of this book certainly have done their job to perfection. Full Review

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Review of

101 Things to Take the Stress Out of Christmas by Robin Snow

4star.jpg Trivia

For many years one of my guiding principles has been that the C word should not be mentioned until the beginning of December but, unfortunately, C seems to be coming earlier each year and there are even shops where it never ceases to be imminent, which ramps up the stress levels considerably. So, a book which promises 101 things to take the stress out of C seemed like a good idea. What’s it about? Tips like putting the sprouts on to boil in November or joining a religion which avoids the celebration altogether? Well, not quite. Full Review

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Review of

101 Things to do instead of worrying about the world by Felicity Brightside

4star.jpg Trivia

I don't think that I've ever been quite so worried about the state of the world as I have been of late - and I speak as someone who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and various other apocalyptic moments. It almost certainly comes down to a lack of confidence in the people who are supposedly in charge, whether it be from a political point of view or of our stewardship of this planet we call home. But what can be done about it? We've tried voting, arguing and demonstrating. Now we're down to pulling up the drawbridge and doing our best to think about something else. Full Review

link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/Lloyd 1342/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21

Review of

1,342 QI Facts To Leave You Flabbergasted by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin and Anne Miller

5star.jpg Trivia

I love the way the QI elves play games with us with these books. That's not to say it's a game of pulling the wool over our eyes, for every entrant in this series has had the equivalent online version for the sources, so every page is replicated with the due links you need to search for proof of their statements. No, the game is Six Degrees of Separation. And they're so good at it, they can do most things in three. So in just three standalone, but thematically linked, phrases, you can get from how to make the sound of an Orc army for Lord of the Rings films to record-breaking nipple hair. From illicit wartime barbers in Italy to American founding father bedroom arrangements, is only three steps – and the path carries on to reach that erstwhile novice stand-up, Ronald Reagan, in two more. It's only two jumps between Donald Trump and Charles Darwin, disconcertingly. Full Review

Lloyd 1411.jpg

Review of

1,411 QI Facts To Knock You Sideways by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin

4.5star.jpg Trivia

Handsome is as handsome does. And you know what else benefits from being curt and succinct, alongside old housewives' saws like that one? Trivia. I always thought the QI books such as this one to be handsome things – perfectly presenting trivia, four (on rare occasion, three) statements to the page, in a very nice little cubical hardback. Now they're being represented in paperback, but you know what? They're still handsome things. Full Review

Lloyd 1339.jpg

Review of

1,339 QI Facts To Make Your Jaw Drop by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin

4.5star.jpg Trivia

A spermologer is a collector of trivia. Just that sentence tells you a lot – we're once more in the realm of the curt, succinct approach to the world's information and oddities. It says more, however – beyond the weirdness of the word is the obvious necessity for the word to exist – without people that could be called collectors of trivia you would not need the term. And rest assured, there are currently few people that stand as better spermologers than the chief QI elves. Full Review

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Review of

From Skedaddle to Selfie: Words of the Generation by Allan Metcalf

3.5star.jpg Trivia

I 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 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 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 exception) in regular order. I don't really hold much store by that, and I certainly didn't know we'd started one since the Millennials – who the heck decides such things, for one? Somebody must have put out an order, as someone here says of something else. But in the same way as generations get defined by collective persons unknown, so do words – and those words are certainly a clue to what was important, predominant and of course spoken in each decade. Full Review

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Review of

Cathedrals and Abbeys (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts) by Stephen Halliday

4.5star.jpg Trivia

What makes a cathedral? It's not automatically the principal church of anywhere that is made a city – St Davids is a village of 2,000 people and wasn't always a city, but always had a cathedral, as did Chelmsford. It's not the seat of a bishop – Glasgow has the building but not the person, and hasn't had a bishop since 1690. It's not a minster – that's something completely different, and if you can understand the sign in the delightful Beverley Minster describing the difference, that I saw only the other month, you're a better man I, Gunga Din. Luckily this book doesn't touch on minsters much, and we can understand abbeys, so it's only the vast majority of this book that is saddled with the definition problem. It's clearly not a real problem, and those it does have are by-passable, for this successfully defines a cathedral as somewhere of major importance, fine trivia and greatly worthy of our attention. Full Review

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Review of

The Shakespeare Trail by Zoe Bramley

4star.jpg Trivia

It has been 400 years since William Shakespeare, the man heralded as the greatest writer in the English language, and England's national poet, died. Shakespeare has made a profound mark on our culture and heritage, yet many aspects of his life remain in the shadows, and many places throughout England have forgotten their association with him. Here, Zoe Bramley takes the reader on a journey through hundreds of places associated with Shakespeare – many whose connections will come as a surprise to most. Filled with intriguing tidbits of information about Shakespeare, Elizabethan England, and the places that she talks about, this is no mere travel guide. Full Review

Halliday London.jpg

Review of

London (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts) by Stephen Halliday

4.5star.jpg Trivia

What 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 WH Smith's branch? (This has nothing, of course, on Temple Bar, which has also been known to walk.) Is it the people – the butchers (Jack the Ripper), the bakers (or whoever set fire to the entire city from Pudding Lane) and the candlestick makers? Is it the infrastructure, from the Underground, whose one-time boss got a medal from Stalin for his success, to the London Bridge itself, that in its own wanderlust means it's highly unlikely the Thames will freeze again? However you define a city, London certainly has a lot going for it as regards weird and wonderful, and the trivial yet fascinating. And, luckily for us, so has this book. Full Review

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Review of

Railways (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts) by Julian Holland

3star.jpg Trivia

How and when did Laurel and Hardy replace the Duke of York (George VI)? They reopened the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway when peacetime resumed, at whose launch the latter had officiated before the War. What's the worst that can happen when you travel internationally and arrive on a 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 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. This book is designed to be an ideal source of quick articles and fun mini-essays for use in the smallest room. Full Review

Donald Words.jpg

Review of

Words of a Feather by Graeme Donald

4star.jpg Trivia

Words of a Feather. The title alone suggests an engaging read about language, and the book 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. For example, the link between grotto and grotesque is easy to grasp: the word grotesque derives from unpleasant figures depicted in murals in Ancient Roman grottoes. Other connections are just extraordinary, like the so-crazy-you-couldn't-make-it-up link between furnace and fornicate. These two words date back to Ancient Rome when prostitutes took over the city's abandoned baking domes. And some connections are more than a little tenuous, seemingly just a collection of words banded together, as is the case with the insult and salmon pairing. One of my personal favourites: the Italian word schiavo for slave was used to summon or dismiss a slave; this word became corrupted to ciao, a word the more well-heeled among us use instead of goodbye. Full Review

Binney English.jpg

Review of

The English Countryside (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts) by Ruth Binney

4star.jpg Trivia

I live in the countryside and spend as much time as the weather will allow exploring it, so the chance to read Ruth Binney's The English Countryside was too good to be missed. We've met Ruth before at Bookbag and we know that she writes well and interestingly, but just one thing was worrying me about this book. It's a hardback and beautifully presented but its the size of book that you slip into a pocket or handbag. Would it be rather superficial? Full Review

Lloyd 1234.jpg

Review of

1,234 QI Facts to Leave You Speechless by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin

5star.jpg Trivia

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 occupational disease ever recorded in medical literature was 'chimney sweep's scrotum'. The song 'Yes, We Have No Bananas' was written by Leon Trotsky's nephew. In the 18th Century, King George I declared all pigeon droppings to be the property of the Crown. I hardly think I need to say any more. Review over. Full Review

Berenson How.jpg

Review of

How to Speak Emoji by Fred Benenson

4star.jpg Trivia

Emojis are fun, and there's so much more to them than the smileys of days gone by ;) They can be a language unto themselves, though, and I've found that some members of the, ahem, older generation can find themselves a little troubled by them. This book, then, sounds perfect for anyone who needs a little help with this 'language'. Full Review

Lloyd 3rd.jpg

Review of

QI: The Third Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin and Andrew Hunter Murray

4.5star.jpg Trivia

Well done, Hartlepool. You didn't put on trial and kill a shipwrecked monkey thinking it a Napoleonic spy – any more than the several other places thusly accused ever did. Well done, Italy, for making the ciabatta such a global phenomenon it seems like a traditional foodstuff, even if it was invented in 1982. And well done to that famous ice hockey player, Charles Darwin – who was probably playing it, seeing as it was a British invention, long before the Canadians ever realised they might be good at it. Yes, for a book that spends a lot of its time saying 'this didn’t happen,' 'hoojamaflip didn't do this,' and 'that was never thus', it's one that's incredibly easy to be most positive about. Full Review

Taggart New.jpg

Review of

New Words for Old: Recycling Our Language for the Modern World by Caroline Taggart

3.5star.jpg Trivia

I never declare myself off to have a 'kip', as I recall reading that it originally meant the same amount of sleeping – and activity – as happens in a whorehouse. The word 'cleave' can mean either to split apart or to connect together, and I'm sure there's another word that has completely changed its meaning from one end of things to another although I can't remember which. Certainly, literally has tried its best to make a full switch through rampant misuse. Such is the nature of our language – fluid both in spelling until moderately recently, and definitely in meaning. This attempt at capturing a corner of the trivia/words/novelty market is interested in such tales from the etymological world – the way we have adapted old words for our own, modern and perhaps very different usages. Certainly, having browsed it over a week, I can declare it a pretty strong attempt. Full Review

Move on to Newest True Crime Reviews