1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop

Whether it’s outlawed ponytails in China or Isaac Newton’s lackluster teaching record at Cambridge, the value of Z in Polish Scrabble or animals found only in Fiji, you are guaranteed to read something in the pages of 1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop that you’ve never read before.

That’s hardly unexpected, though, since the three authors behind it are also responsible for the BBC trivia powerhouse QI.

I’m a sucker for a great trivia book, but more importantly, I’m a stickler for trivia accuracy, and so many trivia books are loaded with unproveable nonsense, blatant errors, and factoids that were shot down by better research years ago. And while there are a few nuggets within the pages of this book that seem difficult to prove, for the most part, the facts featured here ring true. (No doubt it’s the QI pedigree that encourages such confidence.)

While the trivia isn’t organized by topic, the pages often adhere to minor themes (a few facts in a row about China, or a few language facts in a row, for example), adding a pleasant, brief illusion of structure before you dive back into the grab bag of random knowledge.