Trivia Books

the pictures of the ship is lavish,narrative of human interest stories are really heartbreaking.the notable personalities aboard the doomed ship is explored.

This book is billed as a collection of human interest stories, and insights into the doomed ship. The book delivers on this promise, but narrowly, as it focuses primarily on the `important' people on board, i.e. the wealthy, first class passengers.

There are chapters about Gracie, Butt, Astor, the Strauses, Widener, Guggenheim, Brown, Ismay, Morgan, and a few others from the first cabin.

Prominent members of the crew also get some attention, like the wireless operators and the bridge officers, but the rest of the crew and passengers are pretty much ignored.

The stories that are here are interesting and readable, but they suffer from a fair number of errors. What is surprising is that most of these errors are `amateur mistakes', and by that I mean errors that even people who have only moderate knowledge about the Titanic disaster should not have made.

To site just one glaring example, the author states that Titanic was carrying slightly more than a full load of passengers (p49), when it is common knowledge that the ship was barely half full.

Despite the errors, the book is a pleasant read. Readers who know their Titanic history well can gloss over the mistakes and enjoy the focus on the ship's wealthy passengers. Those less knowledgeable though, should not depend on this title as a source for the facts.

This book focuses on breadth rather depth, providing a good spectrum of factoids about the two parks. However, it seems like the amount of info on any subject was rarely "just right." Either the topic was so obscure as to warrant exclusion, or was interesting but too thinly covered.

The reason I only give the book two stars though, has to do with the nationalistic tendencies of the authors. The book is fraught with episodes detailing how good and clever the Canadians are with Waterton, but how dimly the Americans have administered Glacier. Having traveled extensively in Canada over the past decade, I find this national inferiority complex common and annoying.

As a former park ranger, I can say this is one of the best books about Glacier National Park that you will ever read.

I wish every national park had a book like this one. I discovered "Waterton and Glacier In A Snap" while doing some research about odd things that have occured in Glacier and Waterton Lakes. Boy, did I get what I was looking for and then some. Perfect for campside reading, this book is a fun read and packed with photos.The most bizarre stories include tales of lake monsters, grizzly attacks, mysterious disappearances, and fur bearing (?)trout. Also you will learn some intriguing details about park history, park service politics, Native American culture, and famous people who have visited the park.

I only wish there was a map to give you a better idea of where in the park these things happened. Still, if you love Glacier/Waterton you will LOVE this book.

The Imponderables book series by David Feldman is the pinnacle of interesting and useful bathroom reading! Since the beginning of the series, Feldman has been highlighting questions that we didn't even know we had (like exactly why is it that a mile is 5,280 feet? and where is Donald Duck's brother?) then he finds "the experts" on any given subject to answer the question. At the end of each question and answer, you are left with a little better insight into the world around you (and you can go out and impress your friends with an expanded catalog of obscure anecdotes).

These books are fantastic overall. They are one part almanac, one part encyclopedia and one part a book form of the show Mythbusters. Many of the questions Feldman seeks the answers to are sent to him by his many readers who want to know about these little-known facts (like why there are 18 holes in a golf course and why tennis balls are fuzzy). Okay, these may not be the most important questions in the world, but these are the things we take for granted in everyday life that we normally don't take the time to stop and think (why is that little finger on our hands called the pinky?).

Feldman has been answering these questions since the first Imponderables in 1986. He has a masters degree in popular culture from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and taught to first ever college course on Soap Operas. If you enjoy trivia, David Feldman is the man for you. He uncovers the hidden meanings and lost history of sports, food, words, science, politics, and everything in between, often in a humorous and insightful way.

So where did Oreos get their name?
What is the difference between Dead End signs and No Outlet signs?
Why does the letter K mean Strike Out in baseball?

You'll have to read the books to find out.

One of the reviewers on Amazon.com I think correctly described this book as "bathroom reading." I agree wholeheartedly. The book reads like an encyclopedia more than anything else, and it's not recommended to read it in large sections (like I did) because you'll be bored quickly. Apparently its part of a series, and this one focused exclusively on language (Where did the term Peeping Tom come from? What does it mean to mind your Ps & Qs?, etc). I suppose if I read a few explanations every day while in the bathroom the novelty wouldn't have wore off so quickly. Probably a good bet for those word-lovers more than anyone else.

WOW! It is hard to believe that people in the world are so threatened by feminism and homosexual/lesbian rights movements that they would write such rediculous garbage and try to pass it off as legitimate. No, men and women cannot be essentialized, and yes, you do need to do research outside of your homophobic group of friends to write a book like this.

There might have been some good ideas in this book, but I couldn't find them. They were too buried in stereotypes. Not just stereotypes of "what is male", "what is female" and "what is normal", but also stereotypes of "what is sex", "what social research says", "what is popular culture" and, well, pretty much what is anything else. There isn't a single complex take on what is arguably one of our most complex issues - it is all presented in cartoonish, one-dimensional parody of human interaction and human understandings, presented somehow as the authors' remarkable insights.

Thankfully, we as a species are not quite as simple-minded as these authors obviously think we are. They have written a number of books on this subject, I note, but they still don't seem to grasp the fact that there is considerable variation in human behaviour _and_ in human understanding, that culture does have an effect on acceptable gender roles (as many comparative studies have demonstrated), and that what level of aggression or emotional wisdom an individual has is the result of the events that make up his or her life history as well as whatever baseline biology has given them. But the interplay of nature and nurture - and the fact that, unlike their stereotypes in this book, scientists are NOT so stupid that they will gleefully ignore this complexity - is hardly given a look in. It is, apparently, all down to hormone levels and rigid biological differences. Um, women have testosterone too, y'know.... If even the biology were as simple as these two make out, we wouldn't still be writing so many books trying to understand this subject.

Oh yes - I might add, my husband does all his own ironing, and I read maps better than he does. And as far as I can tell, neither of us feels particularly bad about this. But according to this book, people like us don't really exist.

There is a strong likelihood that there are some cognitive differences between the genders. But if you want to understand the subject better, this is NOT the book.

The book is in essence a fascintating collection of gender studies research presented in straightforward and entertaining way. The differences between genders go far deeper than basic biology and socialization. Politically correct this book is not. However science rarely is. Although it isn't the end-all-be-all thesis for true gender thoughtful gender studies, it asks the right questions and provides thought provoking answers.

It's actually too bad. There was some useful information in this book. But the political statements just got to be too much after a while. I lost track of the number of times "radical feminist" was used.

It's less a book about gender differences, and more a book about understanding men and how modern society is ruining boys and men. Those pesky "radical feminists" are the ones to blame.

If you want a less biased view of gender differences, try "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps" by Barbara and Allan Pease.

What a relief to read a book based on science, instead of sociology. Why Men Don't Iron gives a comprehensive look at how human biology has been shaped through the ages by nature's harsh conditions, which determine most of our behavior today. Evolutionary psychology, or sociobiology, is always an interesting read, but the authors of Why Men Don't Iron make it especially enjoyable by their insightful and varied examples, and the way they combine scientific fact (and common sense) with clear explanations that the layman can understand. This is an opportunity to break free from the historical parenthesis that is today's Political Correctness and understand the conditions that the rest of the world has not forgotten.

There are certain people who will simply love this book. I should know as I encountered a number of them while reading this at the coffee house. Light, fast, breezy and morbid usually adds up to a book worth at least looking at and 5 PEOPLE WHO DIED DURING SEX is no exception. The book is good for those times when you have a few minutes to kill - on the can, a few minutes before nodding off...

The author is a bit sloppy with some of his facts, though, as one reviewer has already mentioned. He refers to the 1972 Olympics in Montreal, when they were in Munich that year (Montreal was in 1976). And when he is not sloppy, the author stretches things a bit to get his lists together, as when he refers to one actor having committed "accidental suicide," a true oxymoron if one ever existed.

It is a bit ironic. People will forgive an academic for errors in a far more substantial book. But, boy, don't mess with people's trivia. Still, the book only sets you back a ten spot. Just don't use it as a reference for any term papers

I found the book interesting, but I found it hard to take any of the information listed in the book as fact. The author erronously cites Victor Hugo as penning The Three Musketeers when it was in fact Alexandre Dumas. With a glaring error such as that, what else could be miscredit as fact that I am unaware of? I did enjoy the book, but only as a piece of interesting fiction.

This is a good book to keep handy for times when you might be stuck hanging around with nothing to occupy you.

For example, the doctor's waiting room. You want to take your mind off the myriad diseases and ailments you might be catching from all the sickly people waiting there with you. The TV is blaring the latest world crisis on CNN (good content when your spirit is flagging). Do you really want to handle those germ-infested copies of People Magazine?

Instead you can read about Adolf Hitler's cure for flatulence. Or find out that one of the five who died during sex was a Pope(!).

Reviewers have blasted the book's factual errors as if making a mistake in print is a crime on a par with pedophelia. Grow up! I have news for you: lots of published works have factual, spelling, or grammatical errors.

This book is clearly intended as entertainment, not something President Bush will base national policy on.

I think that the author of this book should've gotten the facts straight before releasing this! Singer/Songwriter Jeff Buckley is listed in the book as a suicide, and that is 150% INACCURATE! Jeff's death was a terrible and tragic accident and for him to be so disrespected like this, it makes me sick!

(I would've given this book NO STARS, but I cannot post apparently without giving it at least 1 star)

The book is not even entertaining, and the author has his facts so badly mixed up, you wonder if he ever researched any of the stuff he writes. And yes, Jeff Buckley was NOT a suicide. I find the spreading of this kind of misinformation offensive and disrespectful.

My wife bought me this calendar for Christmas and I thought it was great... at first. As I went through the year, I noticed a number of questions, the answers to which were, shall we say, questionable. While it may be true that a group of bears can be called a "sloth", this is not the only answer, nor the most commonly known one. When I came to the story of the Great Chicago Fire being started by Mrs. O'Leary's cow, I decided enough was enough. This is simply untrue and yet they stated it as "FACT". I will not buy this next year and I will hope my wife does not buy it for me.

The calendar's a lot of fun, but the 2008 edition seems to be subpar to the 2 prior year calendars. The answers are nowhere in-depth as the previous years answers were.

i still find the facts interesting.my only complaint is that there is hardly any room to write important messages on the page.the previous one like the 07 had plenty of room to write your important reminders.i wish they would go back to the older format.i dont like the new layout at all.

I bought this calendar in January of '07 for my father-in-law - after buying him the game for Christmas, I thought he'd get a kick out of the calendar. Not so much.

Instead, I brought it to work, where we have a group of folks who come by my office every day to see who can guess whether the statement of the day is fact or crap. It's pretty amusing, but I have to say that we've had to call bull repeatedly when the editorial team for the calendar didn't do enough research, or phrased the statement in an overtly tricky way. The guy who 'skied' across the Atlantic comes to mind - he skied in two kayaks which were lashed together (doesn't sound like skiing to me) and had no verification of this feat (no pun intended).

We get a good laugh out of it anyway, and I've been sent the link repeatedly to buy it again. I guess that's what I'll be doing in a minute...

This desk calendar, and game by the same name, provide you with trivia that is totally inane. You could live your entire life, and die in peace never having read, heard, or noted any of the trivia proposed as true or false. It might provide a "light" moment that may evoke a smirk at best. My family members, however, have come up with an off-shoot of this calendar/game that is quite amusing: now, in the course of regular "how was your day" conversation, one occasionally sees someone's right hand going up, signifying "fact", or left hand, signifying "crap"...very amusing most of the time, and hilarious at others, especially when not everyone is in on the "joke". I'd still buy this desktop calendar since its something different.

This book is not recommended. There are too many flaws to mention, as in the fact that the author actualy states some myths to be true (more on that later). Here are some flaws:

1. No bibliography. His "debunkings" of myths are arrogant, yet he never cites a source. Scholarary no-no.

2. He claims that "Ring Around the Rosies" was a reference to the Black Plague and popped up in 1347. Where he gets this I have no idea. The first mentioning of Ring Around the Rosies appeared in 1881, a far stretch from 1347. Also, how could "ashes" been a corruption of a plague victim sneezing? The ashes part wasn't added until the 20th century. This was the first version of "Ring Around the Rosies":

Ring a ring a rosie, A bottle full of posie, All the girls in our town, Ring for little Josie.

How that could relate to a plague is beyond me.

3. He claims the Baby Ruth bar is named after Grover Cleavland's daughter. There is no evidence for this claim and it has always been rather ambiguous.

4. Finally the author claims John Hanson was the first president of the US. Let's look at this. No one in Hanson's time called him the President, and John Hanson couldn't possibly have been the "first president of the United States," because neither the office of President of the United States nor the nation known as the United States of America was created until after he was dead.

Main source: ...

While the premise of the book is a good one, we all do have many beliefs that we hold both personally and as a larger culture that are often wrong ( often ,I hate to admit as an art history major, due to the traditions that have been passed down to us through art- though that usually has more to do with who commissoned it- in other words The Church.....) I have to take isssue with some of the points that I saw in just the small sample of the book that I was able to read on Amazons site. As more than one other reviewer has pointed out he doesn't site his sources for his information - something that really bugs me in books like this! When he talks about the "Ring Around the Rosie" / Plauge refrence that is highly debated. With many people on both sides of the issue, so I don't think that I'll be satisfied by his short section that he devotes to each item. ( not to mention the fact that there is NO source material sited!!!) If he says that "most people" think that it has to do with the plauge I don't think that a survey would prove that to be true- while it is often sited I don't think "most" people know that. That term bugged me in other places too- just how does he know what "most people think??? I would certainly be shocked to think that "most" people were so ill educated enough as to think that AD meant "after death" that makes no sense at all!!!! Just how did he come to that comclusion! Not to mention that the BC / AD system is going out of use at any rate in favor of the less exclusively Christian world view BCE (before common era) and CE ( common era).
I also just was overall not that interested in the book because, well, maybe it's me, but these were not revelations to me AT ALL! Most of the time I felt myself rolling myeyes and saying "yeah- duh" Maybe it becomes more enlightening- but from the reviews and the backcover it doesn't seem to! Maybe this book is best suited to children so that they won't form these misonceptions, but it's not an issue I don't think for most well educated adults from what I've read! Maybe I'll pick it up at the libray and take a furthur look, but I think I'll find a more interesting book on the subject.

I was looking through this book recently because I had read and reviewed a book called Modeling Behaviors from Images of Reality in Television Narratives: Myth Information and Socialization by Tony R. DeMars. I think someone reading that book about influences of TV shows on childrens' behavior who doesn't quite grasp the idea of the myths we build our world around as reality would do well to read this book also--as well as a book that came out in the mid-80s called No Sense of Place, by Joshua Meyrowitz. Some people seem to have a hard time stepping back from their 'reality' and seeing these myths.

...but not enough references. Telling someone *how* you find information is just as important as telling them what the information is.

An excellent book to get you to start using some critical thinking skills. The author points out that what we think is so often is not. He did however pass on a myth that is not correct. He passed on the myth of glass being a liquid, when it isn't. Glass is an amorphous solid and not a liquid. It's crystalline structure clearly places as a solid and not a liquid. (Read S.R. Elliott's book, Amorphous Solids, An Introduction)This is but one source among many that will confirm this. I dare say that Mr. Varasdi confirms his own point! All in all a book well worth reading.

I loved taking this test! It was witty and hard and challenging! I worshipped it! Whoever says this book is bad are totally wrong! I loved it

This is the ultimate Star Wars trivia book. This is a must for all true Star Wars fans!

This looks like a kid's book, but is marketed as adult level. Twelve dollars for what? I'm still scratching my head. Lucas didn't make enough money on the special editions at the box office, so he ran out and threw this 100 page no-brainer together and is charging an arm and a leg. Don't waste you money like I did

I took the exam and it was challenging. The part about identifying every single part of an R2 unit was really difficult! Mrs. Rusch should have added more questions about the Jedi and the Force,though.

When I bought this book i expected another dull, dry trivia test that assumed i knew nothing more than the contents of episode IV-VI- was i ever wrong. This difficult trivia coolection draws upon the book series as well as the comics. Parts of the testask you to identify spots on a map of tatooine or label the parts of an astromech droid. Take this challenge if you dare.

Our company hosts a gameshow-style trivia night every week and this book has been a really great resource for new questions!

As an advertising copywriter, I find this book extremely useful. I'm not looking for obscure information. I'm looking for a quick way to find comprehensive lists of items and/or words pertaining to a given subject. This book does just that, and does it well. I'm keeping it alongside my thesaurus and books of quotations as a helpful tool for discovering the intersections of two or more thoughts. As a reference of this kind, I'm giving the book four stars.

The book is just basically lists of things. I bought it for a gift and was hoping it was informational and colorful. There are no pictures. The text is large so it doesn't really list nearly everything in the universe.

Hi. I wrote this book. I wrote introductory paragraphs (blurbs) for each of the 1000 lists, but the publisher removed them. They would have added so much for the readers. I was also appalled when I saw all the added white space in the galleys, which "cheapens" the book while fattening it up. I did not condone either of these and I apologize to my readers. I spent a lot of time working on this book; it was a labor of love.

This book was not what I anticipated. I purchased it as a gift for my trivia-loving dad for Christmas hoping he could spend hours purusing through. Although he could have spent hours as the book is so large, it would have been quite boring for him, I'm afraid. It truly is a book of list after list after list of miscellaneous things. Not a sit down and enjoy reading type of book. No paragraphs or questions or chapters, only pages of lists. I was very disappointed with the lack of description on Amazon about the book from the start.

This book is vary basic, definitely for people who have no background in biology. I'm not sure what level she was writing for, because especially in the beginning it was like she was writing for little kids. Also, her description of meiosis was really confusing.

It's too boring and basic for my taste. I wanted a more advanced textbook. Alot of people say that this book was okay, but for me, I give it a 1/5. I'm not satisfied with Mader's Biology. I don't agree with alot of the stuff that was said like: The US population will have minorites (Black, Asian and Hispanic) as the majority in the next two decades. That is bull! White people have children and their children of course reproduce...even when they are teens because some don't mind. I aslo think that this textbook is simple also, as one person said. It's too basic. It tells you what a Penis is and it tells you the function of the other organs in your bod. However, she fails miserably to add how to take care of the organs and diseases that can come from doing things. Sure she has STDs down, but it doesn't tell how a baby forms in the stomach or how big a baby is when it's born. I haven't read everything, but I skip around because my class hasn't started yet.

Like most biology books full of big words and irrelevent terms this 4th edition biology book by Mader was quite easy for me to understand the scientific terms considering this was my first science course. This easy to read book is a must for those who struggle with the harsh technical terms in science

Mader's "Biology" makes every thing simple with its easy-to-understand language and figures. Great EM shots, summarized tables, and applied examples are a few of the several features of the book. Also, summaries at the end of each section and chapter make it easy to reveiw what you have read in a short time. In addition, I have to note that the book is very simple. i.e. College students may need more detailes, although this book is very useful to them!

Brilliant photography, logical arrangement of topics, outstanding illustrations, and well-written text combine to make this text an outstanding tool in the classroom, or as a resource. Features include: main ideas emphasized in boxes within text; challenging content written for easy comprehension; chapters introduced with clear objectives and concluded with detailed summary; information presented in logical flow; chapter assessment by essay, multiple-choice, and critical-thinking questions; detailed index and glossary.