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John Lloyd

John Mitchinson

QI: The Book of General Ignorance (The Noticeably Stouter Edition) Paperback – 25 Dec. 2008

by John Lloyd (Author), John Mitchinson (Author), Stephen Fry (Foreword)

4.5 1,138 ratings

Part of: Qi: Book of General Ignorance

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An indispensable compendium of popular misconceptions, misunderstandings and common mistakes culled from the hit BBC show, QI.

From the bestselling authors of The Book of General Ignorance comes a noticeably stouter edition, with 26% extra facts and figures perfect for trivia, pub quiz and general knowledge enthusiasts. The QI team sets out again to show you that a lot of what you think you know is wrong.

If, like Alan Davies, you still think the Henry VIII had six wives, the earth has only one moon, that George Washington was the first president of the USA, that Bangkok is the capital of Thailand, that the largest living thing is a blue whale, that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, that whisky and bagpipes come from Scotland or that Mount Everest is the world's tallest mountain, then there are at least 200 reasons why this is the book for you.

The researchers at QI have written many bestselling books including such titles as The QI Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 Facts To Blow Your Socks Off. They now present a noticeably stouter edition, an indispensable handbook for trivia lovers, pub quiz enthusiasts and general knowledge experts alike.

And remember - everything you think you know is still wrong.

Part of Series

Qi: Book of General Ignorance
Print length

416 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Faber & Faber
Publication date

25 Dec. 2008
Dimensions

12.5 x 2.5 x 20 cm
ISBN-10

9780571246922
ISBN-13

978-0571246922
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Product description

Book Description

QI: The Book of General Ignorance - The Noticeably Stouter Edition by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson is an essential companion to QI, BBC 2 and BBC 4's highest rated show.

From the Back Cover

This comprehensive catalogue of all the misconceptions, mistakes and misunderstandings in 'common knowledge' will make you wonder why anyone bothers going to school.

More than 25% longer, with extra cartoons, hilarious extracts from the TV show and 50 new things you didn't know, including:

No one has ever slid down a banister

There are 613 commandments in the Bible

Vipers, cobras and rattlesnakes are not poisonous

Newborn babies are indifferent to their mothers

The Swiss Family weren't called Robinson

The unluckiest date is Monday the 27th

You have no muscles in your fingers

Coffee isn't made from beans

Completely revised, corrected and plumped up, it now includes an index and an appendix listing all the celebrities who have appeared on 'QI' to date.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0571246923
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Faber & Faber; Main edition (25 Dec. 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780571246922
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571246922
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.5 x 2.5 x 20 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 908,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 969 in TV Tie-in Humour
- 1,430 in Trivia Games (Books)
- 2,681 in Quiz Questions

Customer reviews:
4.5 1,138 ratings

About the authors

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John Lloyd
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John Lloyd is the founder of QI and the producer of some of Britain’s best-loved TV shows. He is of the same opinion as Plato: unmitigated seriousness has no place in human affairs. On the other hand, he also likes A. N. Whitehead’s assertion that it’s more important for something to be interesting than true (although it’s more likely to be interesting if it is true).
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John Mitchinson
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John is a writer and publisher. He was Waterstone’s first marketing director before becoming a publisher at the Harvill Press and then Cassell & Co. His authors included the Beatles, Michael Palin, Richard Ford, Haruki Murakami and a woman who knitted with doghair. In 2001 he joined TV producer John Lloyd to set up QI Ltd (www.qi.com). They have recently produced the tenth series of the BBC TV show, and their series of bestselling QI books have been translated into 29 languages. John is also a Vice-President of the Hay Festival and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He writes a weekly QI column in the Saturday Telegraph. His latest venture is co-founding Unbound (www.unbound.co.uk), the UK’s first crowd-funded publishing house which won the 2011 Futurebook Innovation Award for Best Startup in 2011.
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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

1,138 global ratings

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Anselm

Like…wow, man!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 August 2023

Verified Purchase

When I die, I wanna come back as a QI elf. This is a trivia nerd’s heaven. If you know the TV series (which I’m binge watching at the moment), and you can get past the hilariously puerile humor about genitalia and poo, it’s an endlessly fascinating parade of useless, highly engaging and eye-opening facts about everything under the sun - if not in it! The book doesn’t just repeat the series’ facts but elaborates on them, so you get more non-fiction bang for your buck without the sexual and scatological references, which you may see as a plus or a minus depending on your level of depravity. The presentation is anything but a mere litany of unrelated facts. It’s highly entertaining, both in substance and in arrangement. Great for dipping into, but beware: you may find it difficult to dip back out as one section leads thematically to the next.

One person found this helpful

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Clive

CONCENTRATED QI

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 February 2014

Verified Purchase

As I didn't have the earlier, slimmer, version of this book I have no complaints about a re-hash or being cheated. Anyone buying this book will get exactly what they expect and almost all will be delighted by that. I was! There was very, very, little in this book that I already knew and the real frustration is that, after every new fact, I thought "Wow, I'll remember that!" when, in reality, I can remember almost nothing.

I didn't dip in and out of this book; I read it like a novel and like the true 'QI junkie' that I am. Each snippet is short; usually less than two pages and there are lots and lots of them. They are ordered in a very loose arrangement that makes some, often very tenuous, connection between one item and the next. All are utterly fascinating and I didn't come across a single item that was only 'mildly interesting'; every one was brilliant.

Everyone who buys this book (for themselves) must be satisfied with it as you wouldn't buy it unless you are a fan of the QI TV programme, and, if you are, this is like a concentrated dose of pure QI. This is the beef stock cube of pedantic trivia and I loved it!

As you might imagine, I'm a real 'know-all' and delight in trotting out those little known facts at the drop of a hat. It doesn't make me popular but it does entertain me! I will, definitely, be dipping into this little gem from time to time and the index at the back is very helpful. Actually, a tiny proportion of this wisdom will stay with me. For example, the next time that I see the banana plants around our villa in Cyprus, I'll remember that they aren't trees at all and are sterile! Osmotic learning at its best.

You wouldn't be reading this unless you were contemplating buying this book. And you wouldn't be contemplating buying it unless you had seen QI on TV and it had piqued your interest. Here's some news for you; If you've got this far, it's too late and you're hooked, so just give in to the cravings, buy this book and wriggle with guilty pleasure as you soak up everything you'll never need to know.

10 people found this helpful

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tiggrie AKA Sarah

Enormous fun

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 July 2012

Verified Purchase

I'm sure there must be folks out there who hate random snippets of knowledge and don't care who actually invented the telephone, why geese were once thought to be a kind of fish or even a vegetable, whether one can die by eating too many potatoes, what Richard Gere's middle name is, or which nation consumes the most Spam. But in all honesty, I don't know why any of them would buy this book.

If, like me, you enjoy finding out that Eskimos buy refrigerators to stop their food from getting too cold, or why a paperclip was an emotive symbol in Norway during WWII, or having your curiosity piqued to realise that scientists don't know how ants manage to have a photographic memory or that the best place to find a hitherto unknown to science species is in your own back garden, then this will be right up your street.

I'm sure there must be folks out there who hate random snippets of knowledge and don't care who actually invented the telephone, why geese were once thought to be a kind of fish or even a vegetable, whether one can die by eating too many potatoes, what Richard Gere's middle name is, or which nation consumes the most Spam. But in all honesty, I don't know why any of them would buy this book.

If, like me, you enjoy finding out that Eskimos buy refrigerators to stop their food from getting to cold, or why a paperclip was an emotive symbol in Norway during WWII, or having your curiosity piqued to realise that scientists don't know how ants manage to have a photographic memory or that the best place to find a hitherto unknown to science species is in your own back garden, then this will be right up your street.

As an extra added bonus for fans of the show, there are snippets of dialogue from various episodes, which are generally funny and sometimes howlingly so.

So if you would like to find out what rhymes with orange, why banana plants walk, or which sea mammals served as part of the Task Force in Iraq, snap this up and enjoy.

4 people found this helpful

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Luke Carroll

Fascinating but may make people want to punch you

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 July 2009

Verified Purchase

As others have said, this book will turn you into a fact-spewing geek for a few weeks. It's very interesting and enlightening but you also realise that all the things it's telling you will just make you sound like a smart arse should you try and tell anyone else about it.

It's also true that a lot of the facts rely on fake questions or answers that rely on technicalities. For every few questions that's like "What's the driest place on Earth?" which is followed by a suitably surprising yet factually correct answer - a logical pairing of straight question and straight answer - there's a question that misleads you or an answer that feels rather smug; the QI equivalent of saying "Which hand is the 10p coin in?" when it is, in fact, in neither hand (or as this book would have it, "It's not actually a coin because..." or "These aren't actually hands because...")

That said, it can be really hard to put down, though is also great for quick little reads (perhaps while you're on the toilet or waiting for the kettle to boil) since it's obviously broken up into questions rather than large chapters.

Just do your friends and family a favour by keeping your newly found wealth of knowledge to yourself. Maybe lend them the book rather than trying to recite it to them (easier than it sounds, believe me).

2 people found this helpful

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QI: The Book of General Ignorance (The Noticeably Stouter Edition) Paperback – 25 Dec. 2008

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