Most Popular Books by John Mitchinson

The international bestseller, this comprehensive catalogue of all the misconceptions, mistakes and misunderstandings in ''common knowledge'' will make you wonder why anyone bothers going to school. Carry it everywhere to impress your friends, frustrate your enemies and win every argument. You have no muscles in your fingers. Coffee isn''t made from beans. No one has ever slid down a bannister. 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.

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?

Amazing facts from the animal kingdom from QI.

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.

The ultimate compendium of crisp one-liners, knockout jokes, droll asides and universal truths collected over the years by the creators of QI. ''You know ''that look'' women get when they want sex? Me neither.'' Steve Martin; ''You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair.'' Chinese proverb; ''The Beatles are dying in the wrong order.'' Victor Lewis-Smith; ''Cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education.'' Mark Twain; ''Depend on the rabbit''s foot if you will, but remember: it didn''t work for the rabbit.'' R.E. Shay; ''If it were not for quotations, conversation between gentlemen would be an endless series of ''what-ho''s!'''' P. G.Wodehouse

QI The Pocket Book of Animals is John Lloyd and John Mitchinson''s funny, eccentric and confounding handbook filled with interesting animal facts and figures. Join the QI team for an off-road safari into the wildlife, past one hundred of the most unusual members of the animal kingdom, armed with illuminating illustrations and diagrams by award-winning artist Ted Dewan. Amongst the weird, wonderful and really quite interesting animal facts, meet albatrosses that fly non-stop for ten years, leeches with 34 brains, koalas that don''t drink, geese that mourn their dead and lobsters that live for a century. marvel at elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and woodpeckers that have ears on the end of their tongues. Collected by the writers of the hit BBC show, QI, and authors of the international bestsellers The Book of General Ignorance and 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off, QI The Pocket Book of Animals is an animal encyclopedia that even David Attenborough would learn something from. And remember - everything you think you know is wrong.

Just when you thought it was safe to start showing off again, the bestselling authors of The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off are back. With a foreword by Stephen Fry, this parcel of unimaginable information is here to solve a few common misconceptions, mistakes and misunderstandings. Octopuses have six legs, oranges aren''t orange, bats aren''t blind, napoleon wasn''t short, vikings didn''t wear horned helmets, there is no such thing as a fish. QI: The Second 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 stick with which to beat people who think they do. John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are the bestselling authors of QI: The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off. Here they present a wonderful collection of astonishingly interesting facts, perfect for pub quiz lovers, trivia buffs and general knowledge experts alike.

Welcome to QI: The Book of the Dead, a biographical dictionary with a twist - one where only the most interesting people made it in!QI have got together six dozen of the happiest, saddest, maddest and most successful men and women from history. Celebrate their wisdom, learn from their mistakes and marvel at their bad taste in clothes. Hans Christian Anderson was terrified of naked women, Florence Nightingale spent her last fifty years in bed, Sigmund Freud smoked twenty cigars a day, Catherine de Medici applied a daily face mask made of pigeon dung, Rembrandt van Rijn died penniless and Madame Mao banned cicadas, rustling noises and pianos. Carefully collected and ordered by the QI team into themed chapters with thought-provoking titles such as ''There''s Nothing Like a Bad Start in Life'', ''Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone''. Each chapter reveals hilarious insights into the true nature of the most interesting people who ever lived, including Isaac Newton, Genghis Khan, Sigmund Freud, Florence Nightingale and Karl Marx. From the bestselling authors of The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 Facts to Knock Your Socks Off, comes a fun and inspirational biographical dictionary, with motivational stories about the famous and the obscure.

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.

A dazzling third installment of astounding new facts from the New York Times best-selling authors of 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off and 1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop. 1,411 Quite Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways is a gold mine of wide-ranging, eye-opening, brain-bursting nuggets of trivia that''s impossible to put down, another "treasure trove of factoids" (National Public Radio, Weekend Edition). Did you know? Orchids can get jet lag Lizards can''t walk and breathe at the same time Frank Sinatra took a shower 12 times a day Ladybug orgasms last for 30 minutes There are 177,147 ways to tie a tie Traffic lights existed before cars The soil in your garden is 2 million years old

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?

A New York Times Bestseller From the creators of the hugely popular BBC quiz show QI and the best-selling Book of General Ignorance: 1,227 mind-bending facts. Did you know? • Cows moo in regional accents. • The international dialing code for Russia is 007. • The water in the mouth of a blue whale weighs more than its body. • Pants are responsible for twice as many accidents as chain saws. • Saddam Hussein''s bunker was designed by the grandson of the woman who built Hitler''s bunker. • Heroin was originally sold as cough medicine. 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off is a trove of the strangest, funniest, and most improbable tidbits of knowledge—all painstakingly researched and distilled to a brilliant and shocking clarity.

''I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant'' Chris Evans QI is the smartest comedy show on British television, but few people know that we''re also a major legal hit in Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Africa and an illegal one on BitTorrent. We also write books and newspaper columns; run some (frankly thriving, if we do say so ourselves) social media pages; and some of us appear on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Showon BBC Radio 2 every week to answer your questions. At the core of what we do is the astonishing fact - painstakingly researched and distilled to a brilliant and shocking clarity. In Einstein''s words: ''Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.'' Did you know that: Cows moo in regional accents. The entire internet weighs less than a grain of sand. Tintin is called Tantan in Japanese because TinTin is pronounced ''Chin chin'' and means penis. The water in the mouth of a blue whale weighs more than its body. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, it is explicitly illegal in Britain to use a machinegun to kill a hedgehog. 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off will make you look at the universe (and your socks) in an alarming new way.

The New York Times best-selling authors of the QI series return with a fourth collection of mind-bending trivia. The New York Times best-selling authors of the Quite Interesting series have made you see sideways, knocked your socks off, and left your jaw on the floor. Now John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, and James Harkin are back to offer even more—1,234, to be exact—shocking, enlightening, downright-fun facts that will leave you speechless…and pantomiming for more. Did you know? The Big Bang was not as loud as a Motörhead concert. Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender. According to the company that created her, Hello Kitty isn’t a cat. Albert Einstein’s eyeballs are in a safety deposit box in New York. McDonald’s once created bubble-gum-flavored broccoli. It is impossible to hum and whisper at the same time. Convinced it’s all hogwash? Visit QI.com/US1234 for proof of the veracity of every fact. Want more? Check out 1,411 Quite Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways, 1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop, and 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off.

From the creators of the hugely popular BBC quiz show QI, a brilliant sequel to their New York Times–best-selling 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off. 1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop is bursting with mindboggling morsels of trivia—informative, hilarious, sometimes arcane or utterly useless, but always entertaining. Did you know? • Wagner only ever wore pink silk underwear. • There are 34,000 statues of Kim Il Sung in North Korea. • There is a cult in Malaysia that worships a giant teapot. • Earthworms have five hearts. • Your eyebrows renew themselves every 64 days. • Charles Darwin''s tortoise Harriet died in 2006 at the age of 176. Every fact in this magnificent little volume has been researched with punctilious care in order to bring you the truth in its purest form.

EVERYTHING TO PLAY FOR - A NEW BOOK BY QI ELVES JAMES HARKIN AND ANNA PTASZYNSKI - IS AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER NOW ''I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant'' Chris Evans 1,399 QI Facts To Make Your Jaw Drop by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin is packed with even more fascinating facts. Whilst you''re bending over to grab your socks following the succes of 1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off, don''t forget pick up your jaw as the QI team returns with a fresh stack of facts to astonish and enlighten. Did you know that: Pigs suffer from anorexia. It is impossible to whistle in a spacesuit. The first computer mouse was made of wood. Rugby School''s first official rugby kit in 1871 included a bow tie. Lord Kitchener had four spaniels called Shot, Bang, Miss and Damn. J. K Rowling has no middle name. If there are any facts you don''t believe, or if you want to know more about them, all the sources can be found on QI''s website.

Welcome to QI: The Book of the Dead, a biographical dictionary with a twist - one where only the most interesting people made it in!QI have got together six dozen of the happiest, saddest, maddest and most successful men and women from history. Celebrate their wisdom, learn from their mistakes and marvel at their bad taste in clothes. Hans Christian Anderson was terrified of naked women, Florence Nightingale spent her last fifty years in bed, Sigmund Freud smoked twenty cigars a day, Catherine de Medici applied a daily face mask made of pigeon dung, Rembrandt van Rijn died penniless and Madame Mao banned cicadas, rustling noises and pianos. Carefully collected and ordered by the QI team into themed chapters with thought-provoking titles such as ''There''s Nothing Like a Bad Start in Life'', ''Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone''. Each chapter reveals hilarious insights into the true nature of the most interesting people who ever lived, including Isaac Newton, Genghis Khan, Sigmund Freud, Florence Nightingale and Karl Marx. From the bestselling authors of The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 Facts to Knock Your Socks Off, comes a fun and inspirational biographical dictionary, with motivational stories about the famous and the obscure.

''I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant'' Chris Evans The sixth book in the bestselling series brings bizarre, astonishing, conversation-starting facts from the clever clogs at the hugely popular BBC quiz show QI. Did you know that: Iceland imports ice cubes. A group of ladybirds is called a loveliness. It is illegal in Saudi Arabia to name a child Sandi. Eight billion particles of fog can fit into a teaspoon. People who read books live longer than people who don''t. Prince Philip was born on a kitchen table in Corfu. No human beings have ever had sex in space. Netfiix''s biggest competitor is sleep. Mice sigh up to 40 times an hour.

VIVE LA REVOLUTION! Dolphins shed and replace their skin every two hours Pluto was named by an eleven-year-old schoolgirl A donkey''s personality is called its donkeyship Freud didn''t lose his virginity until the age of 30 The bastion that was QI has been stormed, elves have been put to the guillotine, the readers are in charge. After nine and a half years of cumulative reading time, readers of the QI App have selected the definitive QI collection. With a new introduction by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson, and packed full of handsome images, these ten chapters form the best-of to end all best-ofs.

''I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant'' Chris Evans This is an astonishing trove of the strangest, funniest, and most improbable tidbits of knowledge from the clever lot at the hugely popular BBC quiz show QI. The sock-blasting, jaw-dropping, side-swiping phenomenon that is QI serves up a sparkling new selection of 1,342 facts to leave you flabbergasted. Did you know that: Trees sleep at night. Google searches for ''How to put on a condom'' peak at 10.28pm. There is no word for time in any Aboriginal language. Scotland has 421 words for snow. Emoji is the fastest growing language in history. Astronauts wear belts to stop their trousers falling up. The name Donald means ''ruler of the world''. Tanks are exempt from London''s Congestion charge. The world''s only Cornish pasty museum is in Mexico. When you blush so does the lining of your stomach. A group of unicorns is called a blessing. If there are any facts you don''t believe, or if you want to know more about them, all the sources can be found on www.qi.com

''I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant'' Chris Evans 1,411 QI Facts to Knock You Sideways, by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin, contains all-new facts from the QI team to astonish, delight and enlighten. 1,227 QI Facts blew your socks off. 1,339 QI Facts made your jaw drop. Now the QI team return with this year''s groaning sack of astonishment. Prepare to be knocked sideways... Did you know that: Orchids can get jetlag. Lizards can''t walk and breathe at the same time. There are 177,147 ways to tie a tie. Ladybird orgasms last for 30 minutes. Traffic lights existed before cars. Sir Bruce Forsyth is four months older than sliced bread. The soil in your garden is 2 million years old. If there are any facts you don''t believe, or if you want to know more about them, all the sources can be found on qi.com.

John Lloyd and John Mitchinson have proven themselves to be masters at digging up obscure facts, abstruse information, and amusing anecdotes and presenting them effortlessly, somewhat slyly, with either great wit or at least a little bit of tongue in cheek. Their gifts are on full display in Quote Interesting, a lively, wonderfully enjoyable anthology of hundreds of quotes you probably have never heard before, arranged thematically from A to Z. From laugh-out-loud-funny bon mots to some real headscratchers, Lloyd and Mitchinson have gathered a universe of star-studded blurbs like: “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

''This may look like a free ebook sampler, but it''s actually a portal. While you may read this in just twenty minutes, each little nugget is only the visible tip of an information iceberg.'' In this free ebook sampler to accompany the new book 1,342 QI Facts To Leave You Flabbergasted, come face-to-face with some of the most mind-blowing facts in the QI universe, such as: The sun gets 4 million tons lighter every second; The first scientifically named dinosaur bone was called Scrotum humanum because it looked like a giant pair of human testicles; A ''batman'' was a unit of weight in the Ottoman Empire. Ben Affleck weighs about nine batmans; Making all the chain mail for The Lord of the Rings wore the costume designers'' fingerprints away. Enjoy the incredible world of QI facts.