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QI: The Book of General Ignorance | 
| Authors: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
Creator: Stephen Fry
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £4.76
You Save: £8.23 (63%)
New (32) Used (33) Collectible (2) from £1.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 157
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Television tie-in edition
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0571233686
EAN: 9780571233687
ASIN: 0571233686
Publication Date: October 5, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 47 more reviews...
 Perfect bedtime reading September 13, 2008
As has been mentioned before, this loose tie-in to the BBC QI programme feels rather like shuffling through a box of randomly shuffled Trivial Pursuit cards and peeking at the (often surprising) answers.
There is a bit more to it than that though. The subjects are grouped together into some approximation of commonality - the animal world, war, inventors, science, colours etc. and each topic does go into some depth about its subject. Often, and most fascinatingly, this includes exploring how myths have grown around the subject.
Many of the facts will surprise you (one of my eye-openers was that the Celtic ethnicity as we understand it today has only existed since 21st June 1792), whereas many will already be widely known (as one of the non-carnivorous persuasion myself, I sincerely hope this book knocks on the head once and for all the calumnious lie that Hitler was a vegetarian!).
The expectation as you turn the page eagerly awaiting the next topic is palpable! I savoured this book by reading just a half dozen or so facts at bedtime and have genuinely found myself adding some snippets of information from this book into my conversations.
Anything that makes us all a tiny bit less generally ignorant can't be bad!
Great fun for trivia nerds September 5, 2008
This is a very entertaining book that you can pick up and browse for short periods. It helps you to challenge all the things that you assume you know. It delights in debunking popular misconceptions - for example that glass is really a very slow-moving liquid. Glass is a solid. At times it is a little precious and pedantic. I am sure that some of its claims can be challenged. However, it remains one of my favourite bedside books. Recommended.
fun but tedious at times July 31, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a fun book to pick up and put down at leisure but it loses something for not being delivered by the dry tones of Stephen Fry. If you are an avid watcher of the series you will have heard most of these entries before but there are still some gems among them. Some of the explanations do go on and there seems to be a fascintaion with space that just doesn't excite me but there were a few chuckles along the way. At the end there is a disclaimer inviting readers to send in alternative answers or explanations which does dilute the whole thing a bit. Good for picking up trivia to delight your mates at the pub.
 Not entirely fact... June 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's a good book, easy to read, informative and amusing. In fact, it's so informative that one is tempted to learn parts of it as ammunition for showing off how impressively clever you are to your friends; dismissing common knowledge as fiction is a satisfying thing to do. That is, until you come across something that the book claims to be true which you know in fact to be false (or more likely, not the entire truth). And by "know" I mean parts that cross over with my degree and which I have studied actual research journals on. Once I realised that the book takes liberties for the sake of sounding a bit impressive and sensational, I lost faith in pretty much everything else it claimed to be true. I'm sure alot of it is genuine, but how do you know which bits? And if it's not necessarily true, where's the fun in knowing it?
Intrestingly fastinating June 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Having never seen an episode of QI, I was unsure what to expect from this book however i was not disappointed. It is a very readable and fascinating book showing you just how many things you think you know are wrong. I enjoyed reading it and read it over the weekend but my friends and relatives enjoyed it less so as i quizzed them, knowing they would get the answers wrong. A very interesting read for anyone wishing to extend their general knowledge.
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