Product Description

Compendium of popular misconceptions, misunderstandings and common mistakes culled from the hit BBC show, QI. Published to coincide with the fourth series broadcast in September 2006. If, like Alan Davies, you still think that 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 Graeme 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1758 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Financial Times
"To impress friends with your cleverness, beg, borrow or buy John Lloyd and John Mitchinson's The Book of General Ignorance, an extraordinary collection of 230 common misperceptions compiled for the BBC panel game QI (Quite Interesting)."

Daily Mail
"Eye-watering, eyebrow-raising, terrific . . . moving slightly faster than your brain does, so that you haven't quite absorbed the full import of one blissful item of trivial information before two or three more come along. Such fine and creative research genuinely deserves to be captured in print."

The Economist
"This book would make even Edison feel small and silly, for it offers answers to questions you never thought to ask or had no need of asking as you already knew, or thought you knew, the answer."

Customer Reviews

General Ignorance is not just trivia
I read the Book of General Ignorance over the week-end. Although I have hundreds of trivia books they all pale into insignificance against this brilliant work which I shall genuinely enjoy forever.

Trivia books leave you feeling you're lacking something. There's something frustrating about a three line `fact' which is unsubstantiated and unexplained.

The Book of General Ignorance is a completely different animal, it awakens curiosity, is hilariously written, illuminating and leaves you desperate to fascinate your friends and family with your newly discovered wonders of the world around us. For once you can explain the background to your discovery and WHY it is so.

A fantastic read, highly recommended.

QI - Quite Interesting Indeed
A fantastic book stemming from the popular final round on the BBC's Q.I. series hoisted by Stephen Fry.
As a huge fan of the show I made this book a priority purchase when it became available and don't have a single complaint. Its very easy to pick up and start reading and as easy to put down after you've satisfied your factoid hunting brains!

Brilliant buy. And the series is one of the best shows on TV too - good work.

Generally Ignorant?
Everyone enjoys the BBC2 programme QI. This book takes you through the journey of General Ignorance that will hopefully turn you from the puppy like Alan Davies into a budding Stephen Fry.

There are plenty of books around that attempt to teach you that what you think you know isn't quite true but this one is the definitave guide to knowledge.

So if you think America invented Baseball (It was the English), Thomas Crapper invented the flush toilet(Alfred Giblin), and Jaffa cakes (Apricot) are flavoured with orange jelly then this is the book for you.