Books by John Lloyd
The Deeper Meaning of Liff: A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet--But There Ought to Be
A rollicking, thought-provoking dictionary for the modern age, featuring definitions for those things we don't have words for, from the New York Times bestselling author behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, and TV producer John Lloyd.
Does the sensation of Tingrith(1) make you yelp? Do you bend sympathetically when you see someone Ahenny(2)? Can you deal with a Naugatuck(3) without causing a Toronto(4)? Will you suffer from Kettering(5) this summer?
Probably. You are almost certainly familiar with all these experiences but just didn’t know that there are words for them. Well, in fact, there aren’t—or rather there weren’t, until Douglas Adams and John Lloyd decided to plug these egregious linguistic lacunae(6). They quickly realized that just as there are an awful lot of experiences that no one has a name for, so there are an awful lot of names for places you will never need to go to. What a waste. As responsible citizens of a small and crowded world, we must all learn the virtues of recycling(7) and put old, worn-out but still serviceable names to exciting, vibrant, new uses. This is the book that does that for you: The Deeper Meaning of Liff—a whole new solution to the problem of Great Wakering(8)
1—The feeling of aluminum foil against your fillings.
2—The way people stand when examining other people’s bookshelves.
3—A plastic packet containing shampoo, mustard, etc., which is impossible to open except by biting off
the corners.
4—Generic term for anything that comes out in a gush, despite all your efforts to let it out carefully, e.g., flour into a white sauce, ketchup onto fish, a dog into the yard, and another naughty meaning that we can’t put on the cover.
5—The marks left on your bottom and thighs after you’ve been sitting sunbathing in a wicker chair.
6—God knows what this means
7—For instance, some of this book was first published in Britain twenty-six years ago.
8—Look it up yourself.
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If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?: Smart Quotes for Dumb Times
by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
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
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The Book of General Ignorance
by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A shockingly counterintuitive book of trivia that cuts through the misconceptions that most of us call “facts” to show how wrong we are about . . . well, everything.
“Trivia buffs and know-it-alls alike will exult to find so much repeatable wisdom gathered in one place.”—The New York Times
Think Magellan was the first man to circumnavigate the globe, baseball was invented in America, Henry VIII had six wives, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again.
Challenging commonly held assumptions in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of verifiably true answers to seemingly easy questions, like:
Who was the first American president?
Peyton Randolph.
How long can a chicken live without its head?
About two years.
How many legs does a centipede have?
Not a hundred.
How many toes does a two-toed sloth have?
It’s either six or eight.
Check out The Book of General Ignorance for fun entries and complete answers to these and many more questions. You’ll be surprised at how much you don’t know!
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The Book of Animal Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong
by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
Fast on the heels of the New York Times bestseller The Book of General Ignorance comes The Book of Animal Ignorance, a fun, fact-filled bestiary that is sure to delight animal lovers everywhere. Arranged alphabetically from aardvark to worm, here are one hundred of the most interesting members of the animal kingdom explained, dissected, and illustrated, with the trademark wit and wisdom of John Lloyd and John Mitchinson.
Did you know, for instance, that
• when a young albatross takes wing, it may stay aloft for ten years
• vampire bat saliva—unsurprisingly, when you think about it—is the source of the world’s most powerful blood thinning drug, appropriately called draculin
• bombardier beetles fire a boiling chemical spray out of their rears at 300 pulses per second
• a bald eagle’s feathers weigh twice as much as its bones
• a giant tortoise recently died at the documented age of 255
• octopuses are dexterous enough to unscrew tops from jars
• spider silk is so light that a strand long enough to circle the world would weigh as much as a bar of soap?
So meet the water bears that can live in suspension for hundreds of years, the parasite carried by your cat that makes men grumpy and women promiscuous, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Marvel at elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and woodpeckers that have ears on the ends of their tongues.
If you still think a pangolin is a musical instrument, that hyenas are dogs, or that sheep are pointless and stupid, The Book of Animal Ignorance has arrived just in time.
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The Second Book of General Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is (Still) Wrong
by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
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.
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1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off
by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin
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.
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1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop
by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin
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.
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1,411 Quite Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways
by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin
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 ---
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1,234 Quite Interesting Facts to Leave You Speechless
by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin
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.
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Funny You Should Ask...: Your Questions Answered by the QI Elves
The perfect gift for all those big and little kids in your life who ask'why...?'. With an introduction from Zoe Ball.
The QI Elves are the clever clogs behind the hit panel show QI.
Every Wednesday the Elves appear on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show’s ‘Why Workshop’ where they answer the ponderings and wonderings of Radio 2's most inquisitive listeners
Funny You Should Ask… features the QI Elves’ answers to questions on topics ranging from goosebumps to grapefruit, pizza to pirates and everything in-between. Generously sprinkled with extra facts from the Elves this is essential reading for the incurably curious.
How much water would you need to put out the Sun?
If spiders can walk on the ceiling why can’t they get out of the bath?
What’s the point of snot?
Why does my pizza taste so much better the next morning?
Why do dads make such bad jokes?
Why am I a capital letter and you’re not?
Why is there an Essex, a Wessex, a Sussex but no Nossex?
Can I dig a tunnel to the other side of the Earth?
Why aren’t unicorns called unihorns?
Do cats get goosebumps?
When does a rock become an island?
Why don’t clouds freeze?
Can I live forever?
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1,342 QI Facts to Leave You Flabbergasted
by John Lloyd
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. 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 anti-spam industry is worth more than the spam industry. Florida has more bear hunters than bears. Selfies kill more people than sharks. Two-thirds of deaths in the world go unrecorded. On each anniversary of its landing on Mars, the Curiosity rover hums 'Happy Birthday' to itself. Nostalgia was classified as a disease by the Royal College of Physicians until 1899. 1 in 3 children pretend to believe in Santa Claus to keep their parents happy. Black coffee drinkers are more likely to be psychopaths. When you blush so does the lining of your stomach. Quidditch, Digestive biscuits and overdrafts were all invented in Edinburgh. The world's only Cornish pasty museum is in Mexico. Nobody knows why the Oscars are called the Oscars. Las Vegas hosts an awards ceremony for people who make awards. In 2015, America's 'National Hero Dog Award' was won by a cat. 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 website.
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