Reference : Trivia

The author of Do Penguins have Knees? and Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?, who has a master's degree in popular culture, consults experts to respond to readers' queries on minor but gnawing mysteries of life. E.g., why doesn't glue get stuck in the bottle? Do fish pee? Some answers could have been updated in this reprint of the 1993 hardcover edition. more...

Price: $9.95

Did you ever wonder why you never see baby pigeons? Or why a thumbs-up gesture means "OK"? At last the solutions to some of life's most baffling questions are gathered here in one volume. Written in an informative and entertaining style and illustrated with drawings that are clearly to the point, Imponderables gets to the bottom of everyday life's mysteries. more...

Price: $10.95

A collection of over 800 trivia questions about Quakers, as well as essays dealing with the education, business, industry, politics, and more. An excellent reference for adults and teenagers. more...

Price: $6.50

What’s in a name? For Philip Dodd, this question led to an international hunt for the best stories of eponymous heroes-- an extraordinarily diverse group of people with just one thing in common: by chance or deliberately, they have left their names deeply embedded in the language and consciousness of future generations. A few, such as instrument-maker Adolphe Sax, set out to achieve immortality. A handful – Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, for example – positively shunned the prospect. But the majority, like Joseph P. Frisbie or Ernst Gräfenberg (the G in G- spot), simply had no idea that some strange quirk of their lives, work, or personalities would catapult them to fame, or that one day their family name would become a household word. Tracing their varied paths to glory has taken Philip Dodd on a worldwide quest. He has voyaged to the desolate Matagorda peninsula on the Gulf Coast of Texas to find out the truth about the notorious cattle rancher Samuel Maverick. He has been to Happy Valley, California, to find Roy Jacuzzi, alive and well and still bubbling with ideas. He has followed the story of Joseph P. Frisbie from a former pie factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to the headquarters of Wham-O, trying the fledgling sport of ‘Frisbie golf’ and taking home a rather strange and macabre memento… And, of course, he has ventured to the St Ann’s River in Trinidad to see for himself the spot where Robert Lechmere Guppy, naturalist extraordinaire, first collected a certain small freshwater fish. His discoveries breathe life back into words that we too readily take for granted. Philip Dodd’s globetrotting, personal approach brings these idiosyncratic, occasionally bizarre stories to vivid life— armchair travel at its best. In this marvelous tribute to the forgotten people who changed our language, we learn that the prospect of immortality is only a fluke away. In an age of instant 15-minute celebrity, that's a reassuring tho more...

Price: $20.00

Everything you always wanted to know about the one subject that never gets old… When it comes to sex, a little knowledge goes a long, long way. Here, at last, is the perfect little book to tease your imagination and test your sexual IQ (ever heard of the Turtle Stirs position?). From techniques to tall tales, from the physiology of sex to an astounding ... more...

Price: $6.99