Synopses & Reviews
Blue Ice, Meteors, and Beaver Ass, Oh My!
FACT: The use of maggots to clean wounds has proven to be effective for patients who don't respond to traditional treatments.
FACT: The Icelandic dish hákarl is beheaded basking shark that is buried in the ground for six to 12 weeks to putrefy before it is eaten.
FACT: Used during the Dutch Revolt, rat torture involved trapping rodents under a bowl on a prisoner's stomach then heating the bowl's exterior so the animals would eat through the victim's flesh to try to escape.
FACT: The average person picks his nose five times every hour, occasionally eating what he picks.
The world is a scary place, and it gets scarier every day. From the creator of the bestselling 1,001 Facts That Will Scare The S#*t Out Of You comes this new collection of 1,004 (count 'em!) truly horrifying and horrifyingly true facts about the world around us.
From ancient medical practices to doomsday scenarios, to disgusting food from around the world and the entire terrifying state of Florida, the facts in Are You Sh*tting Me? are sure to entertain and disturb you at once. Unless of course you are already disturbed, in which case this is the book for you!
Synopsis
What you may so cavalierly call useless information could prove invaluable to someone else. Then again, maybe not. But to The Useless Information Society, any fact that passes its gasp-inducing, not-a-lot-of-people-know-that test merits inclusion in this fascinating but ultimately useless book...
Did you know (or do you care)...
• That fish scales are used to make lipstick?
• Why organized crime accounts for ten percent of the United States’s annual income?
• The name of the first CD pressed in the United States?
• The last year that can be written upside-down or right side-up and appear the same?
• The shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar®?
• How much Elvis weighed at the time of his death?
• What the suits in a deck of cards represent?
• How many Quarter Pounders can be made from one cow?
• How interesting useless information can be?
The Book of Useless Information answers these teasers and is packed with facts and figures that will captivate you—and anyone who shares your joy in the pursuit of pointless knowledge.
Synopsis
Thousands of things you didn't think you needed to know-and probably don't.
All you never needed to know, and couldn't be bothered to ask.
One person's useless information could prove invaluable to someone else. Then again, maybe not. But to The Useless Information Society, any fact that passes its gasp-inducing, "not-a-lot-of-people-know- that" test merits inclusion in this fascinating but ultimately useless book.
Did you know...
- That fish scales are used to make lipstick?
- Why organized crime accounts for ten percent of the United States's annual income?
- The name of the first CD pressed in the U.S.?
- The shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar?
- How much Elvis weighed at the time of his death?
- What the suits in a deck of cards represent?
- How many Quarter Pounders can be made from one cow?
- How interesting useless information can be?
The Book of Useless Information answers these teasers and will captivate readers with the joy of pursuing pointless knowledge.
About the Author
In 1995, a secret society of Britain's foremost thinkers, writers, and artists formed to trade and share in what founding member, playwright and journalist Keith Waterhouse, would call "totally bloody useless" information-usually over a pint or two at a local pub. Now, The Useless Information Society regurgitates its bizarre findings for American readers in this first of what they threaten will be several volumes.
Noel Botham is chairman and founding member of the UIS.