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Product Description
Book Description
Product Description
The QI Book of the Dead is a book about life.
What an awful thing life is. It's like soup with lots of hairs floating on the surface. You have to eat it nevertheless.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Around 90 billion people have existed since the human race began. From this huge number, the bestselling QI team selected 600 of the finest examples of our species and researched them in depth, distilling this immense banquet of life into an exquisite tasting menu of six-dozen crisp, racy mini-biographies, where the internationally and immortally famous rub shoulders with the undeservedly and (until now) permanently obscure.
The object is to learn something about what it means to be alive and how we can make the most of the time we have.
The QI Book of the Dead compares and contrasts the different ways individual human beings cope (or fail to cope) with the curves that the uncaring universe* throws at us. Collected into themed chapters with thought-provoking titles such as 'There's Nothing Like a Bad Start in Life', 'Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone' and 'Is That All There Is?' here is a chance to share the secrets of the Dead, to celebrate their wisdom, to learn from their mistakes, and to marvel at their bad taste in clothes.
The man who is not dead still has a chance.
LEBANESE PROVERB
*We don't rule out the alternative possibility of a compassionate God whose motives are beyond our ken.
Inside This Book
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Following the success of the initial QI book and follow-ups such as the Book of Animal Facts, a plethora of hastily - written, badly produced "facts" books appeared on the market. Some of the facts in imitators books were questionable, many based on inaccurate website content.
Perhaps in recognition of this, The QI Book of The Dead has chapters, rather than chunks of info in alphabetical or other order as in previous books. The criteria for grouping people together are somewhat bizarre,as mentioned, but also interesting - as you'd expect. One supposed "fact" is debunked here. There are not as many people alive now as have ever lived. The dead outnumber us by nine to one. (So just why did we ever believe otherwise? Interesting!)
I also wonder if the proofreader read this over lunch; it was certainly done on an off day. No doubt those glitches will be ironed out in the paperback. It might be best to wait, if you can. But if you can't, another really interesting read awaits.
Perhaps in recognition of this, The QI Book of The Dead has chapters, rather than chunks of info in alphabetical or other order as in previous books. The criteria for grouping people together are somewhat bizarre,as mentioned, but also interesting - as you'd expect. One supposed "fact" is debunked here. There are not as many people alive now as have ever lived. The dead outnumber us by nine to one. (So just why did we ever believe otherwise? Interesting!)
I also wonder if the proofreader read this over lunch; it was certainly done on an off day. No doubt those glitches will be ironed out in the paperback. It might be best to wait, if you can. But if you can't, another really interesting read awaits.
46 of 48 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I love Q.I. in all it's forms - the series, the books, the website - so the arrival of a new book was a cause of some celebration for me. This time around, the book is a series of potted biographies of noteworthy folk through the ages. For an added twist, they're summarised not by the times they lived in, or even alphabetically... the various figures are categorised according to things that they had in common. So, Freud, Hans Christian Andersen and Da Vinci all wind up in the same chapter because they had absent or bad fathers! It's quirky, but it works. Like the show, this is packed with 'well-I-never' moments, and proves to be a very addictive read. One criticism though - there are so many basic errors in the presentation, you can't help but feel it must've been thrown together in a rush. For example, in the first chapter alone, words are repeated unnecessarily in the same sentence, causing the reader to skid to a halt and re-read for fear of having missed the point. And poor old Hans Christian has his surname go from Andersen to Anderson, then back to Andersen, more than once on the same page! All right, this might be picky, but this is a chunky, reasonably expensive book - you'd hope it was at least proof-read once or twice.
All in all, good fun - and recommended for all fans of the series, or trivia buffs.
All in all, good fun - and recommended for all fans of the series, or trivia buffs.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As a fan of QI, I've been fortunate to read many of the books and view the series. Although other reviewers have pointed out grammatical and typographical errors, I must say I was too fascinated by the content to notice them! In my endless search for trivia, rarely known facts and all round interestingness, for once, a book took me considerable time to read, whereas I normally fly through them. Why? I found this book so interesting I didn't want to put it down! What an insight into the lives of people we THINK we know/knew, proving yet again the outstanding research that all involved with the QI franchise do. It also shows that we should never assume anything; too many urban myths and legends are repeated today, and this book should also dispel some of those. We should learn more about noteables, yes, but we should learn the CORRECT information about them, which is why I found this book so fascinating. This is the sort of book that every trivia buff or person who regularly quotes "Did you know..." or for someone who just could do with a dose of interesting in their lives. Far from being dry and dull as many factoid type books can be, it actually had me chuckling or saying "Really??" out loud! Another outstanding effort from the QI Team. A QI Book of the Dead II, perhaps?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
BUY IT!!!
I couldn't recommend this more!!!!
It's funny, insightful, well written and impossible to put down!
Buy this now, it's the best book I have read in ages! Read more
It's funny, insightful, well written and impossible to put down!
Buy this now, it's the best book I have read in ages! Read more
Published 21 days ago by Richard Hanney
J.H.Baldwin
I purchased the QI Book of the Dead with high hopes- after all, it is a QI book, and I am very fond of the series and both the noticeably stouter and second books of general... Read more
Published 1 month ago by J Baldwin
jj50
Proved to be a very useful and interesting Xmas present. Has proved to be a good source of interesting facts and figures, which was to be expected. Recommended for QI fans.
Published 4 months ago by JJ50
tttttttttttttttt
a truly facinating book. highly recommend it. as all the qi books are. highly recommend it.as smart as one can write
Published 6 months ago by ;']
qi
Quite interesting pardon the pun-a surprising insight into the lives of famous people, not what you were taught at school ?
Published 6 months ago by DD
Great quick read!
If you tend to like 'list' books, you'll really enjoy this one. yes, it is about what is says on the tin, but it's more black humored than grisly, and it comes in short,quick,... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. J. H. Wheeler
Very interesting indeed
This book is full of interesting information about amazing people of consequence. Without exception the lives of the people in this book were extraordinary and often very... Read more
Published 15 months ago by E. Braben
The (Sex) Life of the Dead
There are so many books that I pick up with high hopes only to put them down unfinished. The QI Book of the Dead is not one of them. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Tomasz Stasinski
V.E
Really enjoyed this book, if you enjoy the series it's a no brainer really. Also full of biographies you'll now want to read.
Published 17 months ago by Twosheds
Interesting but not as good as General Ignorance
Longer and in a different format to Geneal Ignorance but very interesting and well written nonetheless. Would definitley recommend if you liker the QI range.
Published 17 months ago by JLalways
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