NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British bestseller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more,The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school. Think Magellan was the first man to circumnavigate the globe, baseball was invented in America, Henry VIII had six wives, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again. You’ll be surprised at how much you don’t know! Check out The Book of General Ignorance for more fun entries and complete answers to the following: How long can a chicken live without its head? About two years. What do chameleons do? They don’t change color to match the background. Never have; never will. Complete myth. Utter fabrication. Total Lie. They change color as a result of different emotional states. How many legs does a centipede have? Not a hundred. How many toes has a two-toed sloth? It’s either six or eight. Who was the first American president? Peyton Randolph. What were George Washington’s false teeth made from? Mostly hippopotamus. What was James Bond’s favorite drink? Not the vodka martini.

From the brains behind the New York Times' bestseller, The Book of General Ignorance comes another wonderful collection of the most outrageous, fascinating, and mind-bending facts, taking on the hugely popular form of the first book in the internationally bestselling series. Just when you thought that it was safe to start showing off again, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are back with another busload of mistakes and misunderstandings. Here is a new collection of simple, perfectly obvious questions you'll be quite certain you know the answers to. Whether it's history, science, sports, geography, literature, language, medicine, the classics, or common wisdom, you'll be astonished to discover that everything you thought you knew is still hopelessly wrong. For example, do you know who made the first airplane flight? How many legs does an octopus have? How much water should you drink every day? What is the chance of tossing a coin and it landing on heads? What happens if you leave a tooth in a glass of Coke overnight? What is house dust mostly made from? What was the first dishwasher built to do? What color are oranges? Who in the world is most likely to kill you? Whatever your answers to the questions above, you can be sure that everything you think you know is wrong. The Second Book of General Ignorance is the essential text for everyone who knows they don't know everything, and an ideal stick with which to beat people who think they do.

QI: The Pocket Book of General Ignorance is an illuminating collection of fun facts, perfect for general knowledge, trivia and pub quiz enthusiasts. This number-one bestseller is a comprehensive catalogue of all the interesting misconceptions, mistakes and misunderstandings in 'common knowledge' that will make you wonder why anyone bothers going to school. Now available in this handy pocket-sized edition, carry it everywhere to impress your friends, frustrate your enemies and win every argument. Henry VIII had six wives. WRONG! Everest is the highest mountain in the world. WRONG! Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. WRONG! QI: The Pocket Book of General Ignorance is the essential set text for everyone who's proud to admit that they don't know everything, and an ideal sack of interesting facts with which to beat people who think they do. Perfect for trivia, pub quiz and general knowledge enthusiasts, this is a number-one bestseller from the authors of The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 Facts To Blow Your Socks Off, packed with weird, wonderful and really quite interesting facts.

Join QI's expedition into the animal kingdom to encounter 100 of its most remarkable subjects. Marvel at the elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Albatrosses can fly non-stop for ten years without touching the ground. Box jellyfish have twenty-four eyes. Geese mourn their dead. Koalas don't drink. Monkeys pay to look at porn. Lobsters live for a century. Mice sing while having sex. Spiders can fly.

***PRE-ORDER FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK . . . AGAIN: MORE OF YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY THE QI ELVES NOW*** The perfect gift for all those big and little kids in your life who ask 'why...?'. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZOE BALLPre-order the next book in this series, 222 QI Answers to Your Quite Ingenious Questions, published in paperback on 3rd November.'QI have outdone themselves!' ALAN DAVIES 'Fabulous . . . A cracker of a book!' SUE PERKINS'The QI Elves are barnstormingly brilliant.' ZOE BALL'Genuinely useful and endlessly fascinating.' THE SPECTATOR'Hilarious.' DAILY MAILThe QI Elves are the brains behind the enduringly popular BBC TV panel show QI.Every Wednesday the Elves appear on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show where they answer the ponderings and wonderings of BBC Radio 2's most inquisitive listeners.Dive into this splendid collection of listeners' unusual questions and some unexpected answers that are sure to make your head spin on topics ranging from goosebumps to grapefruit, pizza to pirates and everything in-between. Generously sprinkled with extra facts and questions from the Elves, Funny You Should Ask . . . is essential reading for the incurably curious. How much water would you need to put out the Sun?If spiders can walk on the ceiling, why can't they get out of the bath?Why do dads make such bad jokes?Why does red mean 'stop' and green mean 'go'?Can I dig a tunnel to the other side of the Earth?How do plant seeds know which way is up?Can you fill up a black hole?Who popularised the recorder, and where can I get hold of them?For more from the team behind QI, visit qi.com. You can also follow QI's fact-filled Twitter account @qikipedia and listen to their weekly podcast at nosuchthingasafish.comFor more mind-boggling nuggets of wisdom check out the QI FACTS SERIES

EVERYTHING TO PLAY FOR - A NEW BOOK BY QI ELVES JAMES HARKIN AND ANNA PTASZYNSKI - IS AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER NOW *THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER* 'I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant' Chris Evans A bumper final edition of the most surprising, amazing, and hilarious facts on the planet from the clever-clogs at QI. QI is the smartest comedy show on British television. Here creator John Lloyd and QI Elves James Harkin and Anne Miller bring together 2,024 brain-tickling brand new facts to stop you in your tracks... Did you know that: Humans glow in the dark. The Pope drives a blue Ford Focus. One of the moons of Uranus is called Margaret. Scottish football referees are sponsored by Specsavers. Dogs visiting US National Parks can be certified as Bark Rangers. The world's smallest computer is smaller than a grain of sand. Candyfloss was invented by a dentist. Nobody knows who named the Earth.

A whimsical treasury of biographical profiles of famous and lesser-known individuals now dead includes hundreds of entries that reveal embarrassing-but-true details typically omitted by official biographers. Co-authored by the award-winning producer of Blackadder and the writer of QI.

A really quite interesting book of hilarious jokes and motivational quotes, one which gathers the truest and funniest insights of the best minds, and organises them into 250 subjects, from ambition to worry, (or from artichokes to woodpeckers). Featuring quotations from Indira Ghandi, Mark Twain, Homer Simpson, J.S Bach and a prologue from Stephen Fry, there's a motivational quote for almost every situation life throws at you (from the death of your child's hamster to the unified theory of everything). "The Beatles are dying in the wrong order." -Victor Lewis Smith"When you forget to eat, you know you're alive." -Henry James"I think people would be alive today if there were a death penalty." -Nancy Reagan"You know 'that look' women get when they want sex? Me neither." -Steve Martin Collected by the writers of the BBC show, QI, and authors of the worldwide bestsellers The Book of General Ignorance and 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off, here is an inspirational handbook of wise one-liners, hilarious jokes, and motivational quotes of truth and beauty.

The Third Book of General Ignorance gathers together 180 questions, both new and previously featured on the BBC TV programme's popular 'General Ignorance' round, and show why, when it comes to general knowledge, none of us knows anything at all. Who invented the sandwich? What was the best thing before sliced bread? Who first ate frogs' legs? Which cat never changes its spots? What did Lady Godiva do? What can you legally do if you come across a Welshman in Chester after sunset?

'Quite simply, and quite ridiculously, one of the funniest and most illuminating books I have ever read. I thought I was obsessive, but Keith Kahn-Harris is playing a very different sport. He really has discovered the whole world in an egg.' Simon Garfield A thrilling journey deep into the heart of language, from a rather unexpected starting point. Keith Kahn-Harris is a man obsessed with something seemingly trivial - the warning message found inside Kinder Surprise eggs: WARNING, read and keep: Toy not suitable for children under 3 years. Small parts might be swallowed or inhaled. On a tiny sheet of paper, this message is translated into dozens of languages - the world boiled down to a multilingual essence. Inspired by this, the author asks: what makes 'a language'? With the help of the international community of language geeks, he shows us what the message looks like in Ancient Sumerian, Zulu, Cornish, Klingon - and many more. Along the way he considers why Hungarian writing looks angry, how to make up your own language, and the meaning of the heavy metal umlaut. Overturning the Babel myth, he argues that the messy diversity of language shouldn't be a source of conflict, but of collective wonder. This is a book about hope, a love letter to language. 'This is a wonderful book. A treasure trove of mind-expanding insights into language and humanity encased in a deliciously quirky, quixotic quest. I loved it. Warning: this will keep you reading.' - Ann Morgan, author of Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer