. . and he's hit the jackpot! After the success of his first two books, Duh! and They Did What!?, Fenster has struck again with Well, Duh! Our Stupid World, and Welcome to It. More tales of the dim-witted and simpleminded are incorporated in chapters such as: Food for Thoughtlessness: The All-Turnip Diet and Other Loony Meals at the Mindless Cafe Hollyweird: Bird Brains in Tinsel Town Dumb Ways to Die: Buried Alive but Not for Long Government by the Idiots: How to Get Elected to AnythingCombined sales of Bob Fenster's previous two books total over 50,000 copies.Ted Rueter is a self-described political junkie and a professor of political science at Tulane University in New Orleans. He is the author of eight books and has written for the New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has taught at Middlebury College, Georgetown University, Smith College, and UCLA. He is the founder of Noise Free America (Noisefree.org). His Web site is DrPolitics.com.Bob Fenster has combed the world of the intellectually challenged searching for more tales of stupidity to entertain us with . . . and he's hit the jackpot! After the success of his first two books, Duh! and They Did What!?, Fenster has struck again with Well, Duh! Our Stupid World, and Welcome to It. More tales of the dim-witted and simpleminded are incorporated in chapters such as: Food for Thoughtlessness: The All-Turnip Diet and Other Loony Meals at the Mindless Cafe Hollyweird: Bird Brains in Tinsel Town Dumb Ways to Die: Buried Alive but Not for Long Government by the Idiots: How to Get Elected to AnythingCombined sales of Bob Fenster's previous two books total over 50,000 copies.

    Uncle John's Bathroom Reader for Kids Only is a never-ending supply of factoids and statistics.

    BIZARRE STUFF, AMAZING FACTS, ASTONISHING MYSTERIES, NATURAL WONDERS, LITTLE-KNOWN PEOPLE, USEFUL TIPS AND MUCH, MUCH MOREFrom crime, movies and music to science, history and literature, this book offers an incredible array of intriguing top-10 lists, including:•Urban Legends—Debunked•Influential People Who Never Lived•Ancient Methods of Execution•Poisonous Foods We Love to Eat•Inventions of the Middle Ages•Gruesome Fairytale Origins•Secret Societies•Amazing Film Swordfights•Bizarre Animal Mating Rituals•Misconceptions About Evolution•Tips for Frugal Living•Fascinating Graveyards You Must See

    For nearly three decades David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace have been researching curious facts and unusual statistics and the incredible stories behind them. Now the most entertaining and informative of these have been brought together in a long-awaited, thoroughly up-to-date, and Americanized new edition, including brand-new lists and list makers. Contributors include: Oliver Stone; Jane Fonda; Sean Connery; Robert Duvall; Pedro Almodovar; Stephen King; John Waters; Wynton Marsalis; Quincy Jones; Arnold Palmer; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Isaac Stern; Ian Rankin; Alan Dershowitz; Margaret Atwood; Dave Eggers; Brian Eno; and Elmore Leonard.

    In his latest book, David Feldman answers 100 new and even more perplexing questions about food, popular culture, the human body, science, and more, such as:Why do pianos have 88 keys? Why is there no light in the freezer?And, of course, Do elephants jump? Like the other books in the Imponderables series, Do Elephants Jump? is in a question/answer format, with questions sent in by readers and fans of the series, and answers painstakingly researched and offered in Feldman’s trademark humorous style.This tenth book in the series is complete with a master index to all the Imponderables® books, and charming illustrations by longtime collaborator Kassie Schwan.

    This collection of chuckle-worthy stories about stupid criminals and the ridiculous ways they gave themselves away is illustrated with wacky collage art, and sprinkled with more than 150 weird-but-true facts about crime, including: funny laws; hilarious costumes criminals have worn while robbing banks; animal crimes and midemeanors; strange food crimes; great escapes; and more...

    For example, myrrh is incense made from the resin of a North African bush and was a special gift during biblical times. To the Romans, mistletoe was a symbol of fertility, so today we are encouraged to kiss when it is near. The Yule log was originally used to brighten homes during the dark, cold Scandinavian Christmas season. Packed with all manner of delightful surprises and delicious morsels, A Christmas Miscellany demystifies the origins of familiar festive customs such as caroling and Christmas cards, and entertains with fun, little-known facts. This is the perfect gift or stocking stuffer for the curious-minded during the holiday season.

    CRAZY-BUT-TRUE FACTS, PECULIAR OCCURRENCES, DESPICABLE CRIMES, BIZARRE RECORDS, UNBELIEVABLE CREATURES AND MANY MORE SHOCKING ODDITIESDelving into the shocking side of pop culture, science and history, Listverse.com's Epic Book of Mind-Boggling Lists offers a wealth of fascinating reading with over 200 lists and more than 2,000 interesting facts, including:• Alien Artifacts• Creepy Urban Legends• Bizarre Murder Weapons• Horrific TV Accidents• Outrageous Rock Tales• Twisted Circus Acts• Terrifying Villains• Crazy-but-True Movie Plots• Dirty CIA Operations• Monstrously Evil Babysitters• Strange Hamburger Facts• Animal Freaks of Nature• Mind-Blowing Technologies

    But this isn't fantasy, this is hard fact.

    Now the best of these questions and answers--from the profound to the ridiculous--are collected in book form so that you can know a little about a lot. Exploding myths, revealing shocking truths, and explaining all major mysteries of the cosmos, The Straight Dope contains more than four hundred fully-indexed entries on topics ranging from sex to consumer products, science to history, and rock 'n' roll to much, much more!

    Revised and updated with lots of new material, this book is every bit as vital as the first edition. From the inequalities and absurdities of the so-called developed world to the vast scale of suffering wreaked by war, famine, and AIDS in developing countries, it paints a picture of incredible contrasts.This 2.0 edition again contains an eclectic selection of facts addressing a broad range of global issues, now with added emphasis on climate change, the decline in human rights and democratic freedoms around the world, the unexpected global impact of corporate growth, sports and media madness and inequality, and lots of updated facts and figures. Each is followed by a short essay explaining the story behind the fact, fleshing out the bigger problem lurking behind the numbers. Real-life stories, anecdotes, and case studies help to humanize the figures and make clear the human impact of the bald statistics.All of the facts remind us that whether we like to think of it or not, the world is interconnected and civilization is a fragile concept. Williams makes us think about some of the hard facts about our civilization, and what we can do about them.Jessica Williams is a journalist and producer of the BBC's flagship international interview program, HARDTalk with Tim Sebastian, where she has researched and produced interviews with such disparate figures as the political philosopher Noam Chomsky, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Sir David Attenborough, and the academic Edward Said.

    Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? takes you back in time to the tastes, smells, and sounds of childhood in the '70s and '80s, when the Mystery Date board game didn't seem sexist, and exploding Pop Rocks was the epitome of candy science. But what happened to the toys, tastes, and trends of our youth? Some vanished totally, like Freakies cereal. Some stayed around, but faded from the spotlight, like Sea-Monkeys and Shrinky Dinks. Some were yanked from the market, revised, and reintroduced...but you'll have to read the book to find out which ones. So flip up the collar of that polo shirt and revisit with us the glory and the shame of those goofy decades only a native could love.

    It had an illustration that captivated him–a diagram showing Earth’s interior as it would look if you cut into it with a large knife and removed about a quarter of its bulk. The idea of lots of startled cars and people falling off the edge of that sudden cliff (and 4,000 miles is a pretty long way to fall) was what grabbed him in the beginning, but gradually his attention turned to what the picture was trying to teach him: namely that Earth’s interior is made up of several different layers of materials, and at the very centre is a glowing sphere of iron and nickel, as hot as the Sun’s surface, according to the caption. And he very clearly remembers thinking: “How do they know that?”Bill’s storytelling skill makes the “How?” and, just as importantly, the “Who?” of scientific discovery entertaining and accessible for all ages. He covers the wonder and mystery of time and space, the frequently bizarre and often obsessive scientists and the methods they used, and the mind-boggling fact that, somehow, the universe exists and against all odds, life came to be on this wondrous planet we call home.

    Pitkin contains more than 300 recipes served by Aunt Bee and others on The Andy Griffith Show "TM". Includes wonderful, rare photos from the show and interesting sidebars. Illustrated and indexed.

    Since that time he has answered thousands of questions about birds, both at his store and while walking down the aisles of the supermarket. The questions have ranged from inquiries about individual species ("Are flamingos really real?") to what and when to feed birds ("Should I bring in my feeders for the summer?") to the down-and-dirty specifics of backyard birding ("Why are the birds dropping poop in my pool?"). Answering the questions has been easy; keeping a straight face has been hard.Why Don't Woodpeckers Get Headaches? is the solution for the beginning birder who already has a book that explains the slight variation between Common Ground-Doves and Ruddy Ground-Doves but who is really much more interested in why birds sing at 4:30 A.M. instead of 7:00 A.M., or whether it's okay to feed bread to birds, or how birds rediscover your feeders so quickly when you've just filled them after a long vacation. Or, for that matter, whether flamingos are really real.