Manslations: Decoding the Secret Language of Men


Jeff Mac - 2009
    'Manslations' is an hilarious - and honest - guide for women about what men say, who they are, and why they behave the way they do.

5 People Who Died During Sex: and 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists


Karl Shaw - 2007
    Nothing is too inane, too insane, too bizarre, or too distasteful for this incredible, seemingly impossible, but absolutely true collection of facts from across the ages and around the world.Did you know……that Pope Benedict XII was such a hardened boozer that he inspired the expression “drunk as a pope”? (From “10 Historic Drunks”)…that as a special honeymoon treat, Prince Charles read Princess Diana passages from the works of Carl Jung and Laurens van der Post? (From “History’s 10 Least Romantic Honeymoons”)…that the best-dressed gentlemen in medieval England exposed their genitals below a short-fitting tunic? (From “History’s 10 Greatest Fashion Mistakes”)…that Alfred Hitchcock suffered from ovophobia—fear of eggs? (From “10 Phobias of the Famous”)…that King Louis XIV only took three baths in his lifetime, each of them under protest?(From “10 Great Unwashed”)…that in 1930, Sears customers became enraged when the catalog was first printed on glossy, non-absorbent paper?(From “12 Magical Moments in Toilet Paper History”)

The Paranoid's Pocket Guide: Hundreds of Things You Never Knew You Had to Worry About


Cameron Tuttle - 1997
    Because a pair of drawstring sweatpants could bring about your most embarrassing moment. And a toothpick in your sandwich can be the deadliest of weapons. Including hundreds of bizarre-but-true things that can get you, this compact volume will induce nervous page flipping and make even the most snug and secure folks bonafide paranoiacs. Chilling black and white photographs document the everyday items that menace your safety. But whether it's archibutyrophobia (the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth) or phobophobia (the fear of fear itself) that eventually gets you, don't be afraid to buy this book. You never know what might happen to you if you don't.

Fact. Fact. Bullsh*t!: Learn the Truth and Spot the Lie on Everything from Tequila-Made Diamonds to Tetris's Soviet Roots - Plus Tons of Other Totally Random Facts from Science, History and Beyond!


Neil Patrick Stewart - 2011
    It's going to be a lot harder than you think to pick out the BS. Each entry hides one well-crafted fib among a pair of unbelievable truths. And it's up to you to figure out what's fascinating and what's fabricated on everything from koala bears to Confucius to high-fructose corn syrup.Was Cleopatra the last Egyptian pharaoh?Can you really make diamonds out of tequila?Is the platypus actually poisonous?A flip of the page reveals whether you're right or wrong as well as more information on the true trivia—and why you might've fallen for the fake fact. You'll really need to know your sh*t if you plan on correctly calling bullsh*t.

mental_floss: The Book: The Greatest Lists in the History of Listory


Will Pearson - 2011
    Commemorating the 10th anniversary of the award-winning mental_floss magazine, authors Will Pearson, Mangesh Hattikudur, and Ethan Trex offer a cornucopia of additive, edifying, oddball, and irreverent information guaranteed to make dedicated trivia fans “feel smart again.” In the spirit of their top-selling book, Condensed Knowledge, mental_floss: The Book is perfect for everyone who likes to laugh while they learn.

The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs


The New Yorker - 2012
    This copious collection, beautifully illustrated in full color, features articles, fiction, humor, poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and drawings from the magazine’s archives. The roster of contributors includes John Cheever, Susan Orlean, Roddy Doyle, Ian Frazier, Arthur Miller, John Updike, Roald Dahl, E. B. White, A. J. Liebling, Alexandra Fuller, Jerome Groopman, Jeffrey Toobin, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Ogden Nash, Donald Barthelme, Jonathan Lethem, Mark Strand, Anne Sexton, and Cathleen Schine. Complete with a Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell and a new essay by Adam Gopnik on the immortal canines of James Thurber, this gorgeous keepsake is a gift to dog lovers everywhere from the greatest magazine in the world.

Signs From Pets In The Afterlife: Identifying Messages From Pets in Heaven


Lyn Ragan - 2015
    Some messages are given in ways that do require an acute awareness and more interpretation as well. From the Heavens above, Signs are given by deceased pets to connect with their families they left behind. Oftentimes, the gifts they share are unseen or are difficult to identify.Learning to speak the Language of Spirit require practice, but once identified, the joy of hearing from your Pet in Spirit can bring great comfort. This book is an ABC's narrative for identifying signs, messages, and signals from the Afterworld. It shares a simple way to look for, and read, communications from Pet's in the Hereafter.For anyone looking to continue their relationship with a beloved Pet in the Afterlife, this book can help you identify their Gifts from Heaven.Love lives forever... and so do our Souls...

Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things


Richard Wiseman - 2007
    In Quirkology, he navigates the backwaters of human behavior, discovering the tell-tale signs that give away a liar, the secret science behind speed-dating and personal ads, and what a person's sense of humor reveals about the innermost workings of their mind- all along paying tribute to others who have carried out similarly weird and wonderful work. Wiseman's research has involved secretly observing people as they go about their daily business, conducting unusual experiments in art exhibitions and music concerts, and even staging fake seances in allegedly haunted buildings. With thousands of research subjects from all over the world, including enamored couples, unwitting pedestrians, and guileless dinner guests, Wiseman presents a fun, clever, and unexpected picture of the human mind.

I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot from School


Caroline Taggart - 2008
    A light-hearted and informative reminder of all the things that we learnt in school but have since become relegated to the backs of our minds, I Used to Know That features hundreds of important snippets of wisdom, facts, theories, equations, phrases, rules and sayings. A practical guide to turn to when an answer is eluding you, when helping a child with homework or preparing them for the new school year, or maybe just to brush up on trivia for the pub quiz. I Used to Know That covers English Language and Literature, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History, Geography and General Studies, so never again will you find yourself stumped!

14,000 Things to Be Happy About: The Happy Book


Barbara Ann Kipfer - 1990
    Strawberry ice cream. Making faces at monkeys in the zoo. Dog dishes that say "Good Dog." Carolers singing around a Norwegian spruce. Sun burning off the morning fog. Cabanas. It's the little things that make life worth living, and they can be found by the dozens in this obsessive, quirky, and utterly captivating compendium with over 950,000 copies in print. A pure, unadulterated listing, it offers not a single explanation, aside, or footnote, but reading it is as irresistible as eating popcorn. Randomly selected and catalogued over the course of twenty years-and illustrated with joyous and jewel-like precision by the gifted artist Pierre Le-Tan-14,000 THINGS is Barbara Ann Kipfer's perfect antidote to the all-too-frequently-mentioned things we should be unhappy about.It's a celebration of almost everything that's ever made us smile. And that itself is reason number 14,001.

The American Association of Patriots Presents: How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety


Zachary Auburn - 2016
    Modern cats must confront satanists, online predators, the possibility of needing to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and countless other threats to their nine lives.For over four decades, the American Association of Patriots have stood at the vanguard of our country's defense by helping to prepare our nation's cat owners for the difficult conversations they dread having with their pets. Written in a simple Q&A format, How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety answers crucial questions such as, “What is the right age to talk to my cat about the proper use of firearms?” and “What are the benefits of my cat living a lifestyle of abstinence?” and especially “Why does my cat need to use the internet? Can’t he just play with yarn like cats used to do?”Our country—and our cats—stand at a precipice. It will take courage, and it will take hard work, but armed with the knowledge within these pages, we can make our cats—and America—great again!

Law and Disorder: Absurdly Funny Moments from the Courts


Charles M. Sevilla - 2014
    Sevilla finds comic gems in court transcripts and now brings readers a delightful, all-new collection. Starting with a chapter on the defendants (one of whom, when asked his marital status, replies after a long pause, Adequate ) and following with sections on lawyers, experts, witnesses, evidence, and even one called Malaprops (DA: The status of the boat has no relevance to this case at all. This is a total fishing expedition). Stories from the previous books have become viral Internet sensations, priming readers for more legal disorder, such as: Clerk: Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to given in the cause now pending before this court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?Witness: Yes, I swear. I ll say anything but the truth, nothing but the truth."

Family Medical History: Unknown/Adopted: How One Inquiry Led to Many Unexpected Discoveries


Nancy Kacirek Feldman - 2014
    They would ask her about her family’s health history, and she would hear the doctor’s familiar sigh after she answered, “I don’t know, I’m adopted.”Being perfectly happy with the loving family she had, Feldman never took an interest in finding her biological parents until diagnosed with a disease that she passed on to her son. Suddenly, Nancy’s lack of family history was affecting someone else.Writing to the Nebraska Children’s Home Society for help, the adoption agency assigned Nancy’s case to Rebecca Crofoot. This began a 17-year journey between the two women who were determined to find information about a family that might not know, or want to know, Nancy existed.Family Medical History: Unknown/Adopted is a heart-warming story of personal, medical, genealogical and emotional discovery.

The Utterly, Completely, And Totally Useless Fact-o-pedia


Charlotte Lowe - 2009
    Organized from A to Z, there are over 1000 trivia tidbits for you to peruse. Start off with little-known facts about absinthe and Barbie and continue until you've discovered hidden gems about zombies, zippers, and more! Did you know that Levi Strauss originally intended to sell canvas tents to miners in California but ended up using the fabric to make what the prospectors really needed - pants! Or that a chicken in Colorado had its head cut off and managed to live...for another 2 years? The Utterly, Completely, and Totally Useless Fact-o-pedia is a virtual treasure trove of useless fact fixes for the insatiably curious.

The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp through Civilization's Best Bits


Erik Sass - 2008
    As audacious as it is edifying, here is a hilarious and irreverent—yet always historically accurate—overview of the ascent (or descent) of humankind, courtesy of the same rebel geniuses who brought you Mental Floss presents Condensed Knowledge and Mental Floss Presents Forbidden Knowledge. Updated with all the hot topics and events of the past few years, The Mental Floss History of the World is proof positive that just because something’s true doesn’t mean it’s boring.