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10Te Greatest Stories Never oldRick Beyer

Tis is history candy the good stu. Here are 100 tales to astonish, bewilder,and stupey: more than two thousand years o history lled with courage, cow-ardice, hope, triumph, sex, intrigue, olly, humor, and ambition. Its a historical

delight and a visual east with hundreds o photographs, drawings, and mapsthat bring each story to lie. A new discovery waits on every page: stories thatchanged the course o history and stories that aected what you had or break-ast this morning. Some surprising things you will encounter: the Pilgrimslanded on Plymouth Rock because they ran out o beer, Tree cigars changedthe course o the Civil War, and Some Roman ocials were so corrupt that theyactually stole time itsel.

9Extraordinary Origins of Everyday TingsCharles Panati

I you enjoy trivia and unusual acts, then Charles Panatis Extraordinary Ori-gins o Everyday Tings, is the perect book. I have read other trivia booksand I can say without hesitation that Mr. Panati produces the best o the genre.Many trivia books list a dry and uninspired act sheet. Panati, however, avoidsthis common pitall and instead entertains us with unusual and well researchedtrivia about the history or origin o many everyday items and customs. I ownthis book and highly recommend it it has even come in handy as a researchtool or some o our previous lists.

8Book of SecretsTomas Eaton

Did you know theres a secret daily fight rom the United States to Cuba? Or,that in 1966, the U.S. government smashed a bacteria-laden light bulb inside theNew York subway system? Tomas Eatons Book o Secrets reveals hundreds oclandestine, covert, surreptitious, urtive, hush-hush, and taboo pop-cultural

and historical curiosities, rom government cover-ups to marketing tricks toColonel Sanders secret recipe. Practical secrets are also revealed, such as howto obtain a fight upgrade, speak in public, or win riends and infuence people.Production eatures include a Kivar cover with rounded corners and oil stamp-ing.

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7Te Book of General IgnoranceJohn Mitchinson and John Lloyd

I you like our lists on myth debunking and ascinating acts, you will love thisbook. Tis surprisingly lengthy book is jam-packed with real answers to a numbero less-than-burning questions-camels store at, not water, in their humps; only ve

out o every 100,000 paper clips are used to clip papers; the rst American presidentwas in act Peyton Randolph-that you nevertheless may be embarrassed to havecompletely wrong. Although some o the entries rely on technicality more thanactual excavation o obscure act (Honolulu is technically the worlds largest city,despite the act that 72% o its 2,127 square miles is underwater), these page-lengthentries prove entertaining and inormative, perect or trivia bus and know-it-alls;it also makes a ne coee table conversation piece and a handy resource or prep-ping clever cocktail party banter.

6Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader Wise Up

Bathroom Readers Institute

King ut was buried with 145 pairs o loincloth underwear; the average newbornbaby spends 113 minutes a day crying; Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young stole a truckto get to Woodstock in time to perorm; players on the Chicago White Sox haventworn white socks since 1948; garlic and onions are both members o the lily am-ily. Tese are but a ew o the ascinating tidbits in this ollow-up to the best-selling

Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book o Facts. Handily organizedinto hundreds o topics rom sports and entertainment to word origins and sci-ence, the book is equally useul or short stays or extended visits.

5A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson

From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History o Nearly Ev-

erything reports what happened and how humans gured it out. o accomplish thisdaunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds o sources, rom popular sciencebooks to interviews with luminaries in various elds. His aim is to help people likehim, who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, to appreciate howwe have used science to understand the smallest particles and the unimaginably vastexpanses o space.

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4Te Encyclopedia of Tings that Never WereRobert Ingpen

Tis comprehensive compilation reerences myths and antasies rom around the

world and spanning human history. Detailed yet succinct, the very readable ar-ticles are collected under seven topics and arranged alphabetically by subject. Tediverse coverage examines myriad imagined powers and creatures rom histori-cal, sociological, cultural, and artistic perspectives, and while many o the ghosts,wizards, gremlins, gods, airies, and so orth are amiliar, many more, e.g., Hyper-borea, Alulei, and Phaeton, are not. Each article summarizes the identity, deni-tion, and aspects o the entity, drawing on material derived rom classic studies inmyth and lore.

3An Underground EducationRichard Zacks

rue to our love o all things obscure and bizarre, here is An Underground Edu-cation. Forget the history you were taught in school; Richard Zackss versionis crueler and unnier than anything you might have learned in seventh-gradecivicsand much more o a gross-out, too. Described on the book jacket as anautodidact extraordinaire, Zacks is also the author o History Laid Bare, makinghim something o an expert guide through historys back alleys and side streets.Teres no act too seamy or perverse or Zacks to drag out into the light o day,

rom matters scatological and sexual to some o historys most truly bizarre epi-sodes. Curious about ancient nose-blowing etiquette? What about the sexual pro-clivities o Catherine the Great? Troughout chapters such as Te Evolution oUnderwear and Dentistry Beore Novocaine, Zacks proves a tireless debunkero popular myths as well as a muckraker par excellence.

2Historys Greatest Lies

William Weir

In this book, Weir neatly dispatches many o the most treasured stories to be oundin the schoolbooks and repeated elsewhere. He relates that Emperor Nero did notddle as Rome burned because the ddle or violin wasnt invented until the 16thcentury (you heard that here rst!) His enemies are the source o that story and hehad plenty o them. Paul Revere did his best to alert the extensive Colonial militiathat the British were coming, but they got to him rst, holding him or awhile asthe word was spread by a variety o means. Te Bastille was stormed because thecrowd wanted to get at its store o gunpowder. Its political prisoners actually livedin comortable quarters. All things considered, this book provides a very interest-ing new look at history.

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1An Incomplete EducationWilliam Wilson

Youll nd everything you orgot rom schoolas well as plenty you never even

learnedin this all-purpose reerence book, an instant classic when it rst ap-peared in 1987. Tink o this book as one-stop shopping or your brain. So younever studied philosophy? urn to page 306. You cant tell Keats rom Shel-ley? Page 195. Spanning 10,000 years o knowledge, eaturing 3,684 things youshould have learned but didnt (or orgot somewhere along the way), it coversworld history, art history, economics, literature, science, political science, re-ligion, psychology, even lm (whats the big deal with Citizen Kane? See page174). We have sold hundreds o copies o this book through the site it is ex-tremely popular.