Product Description

This is the third great "QI Annual" written, drawn, photographed and lavishly blu-tacked together by the many writers, performers and brains from the BBC1 TV series, including: Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Rowan Atkinson, Jeremy Clarkson, Bill Bailey, Jo Brand, Phill Jupitus, Jimmy Carr and many more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82 in Books
• Published on: 2009-11-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

About the Author
John Lloyd, supported by a crack research squad of QI elves, is one of the head researchers on the QI TV programme, and co-author of the bestselling The Book of General Ignorance, The Book of Animal Ignorance and The QI Annual.

Customer Reviews

A ginormous glut of G-ness!
G is for glee (and for Glenn and Gluben, rather pleasingly), and this is certainly what you will find, amongst other things, in the QI 'G' Annual, the third in the hopefully long-running series of annuals related to the rather excellent and, of course, quite interesting BBC television series QI.

For those of you that don't know (and by now, really, you should, you silly people), QI is a game show with a quest: to find, discover, root out and unravel the various peculiarities of the universe and prove that anything and everything is "quite interesting", if looked at in the right way. Not only that, but it can be pretty fun and, indeed, funny as well, especially in the capable hands of host Stephen Fry, regular panellist/stud-muffin Alan Davies and his gregarious gang. Points are awarded for interesting answers to a question nobody knows the answer to, and points deducted for an obvious-but-wrong answer accompanied by flashing words and an embarrassing klaxon. All this sounds rather complicated or erudite, but trust me, the show is easily accessible and hugely enjoyable.

This 96-page annual ties into the seventh series of the show, known as the 'G' series, with each episode related to something beginning with said letter. Appropriate, then, that the cover is a gorgeous green complete with gnome caricatures of many panellists. The artwork continues inside where the colour bursts forth gloriously, so even children will be entertained purely by the layout itself, much of which is helped by artists and writers like Jacqueline Bisset, Craig Brown, Mat Coward, Piers Fletcher (who took over producing duties on the panel show recently), Gray Jolliffe, Roger Law and Nick Newman. Each page is garish but not gaudy, complete with many g-words, geographical greats, galactical galleries, gods, gladiatorial grooming, generals, gardens, goons, gangsters, gin, growth, ghosts, gallivanting, gulls, golf, globetrotting, Geordies, gravel, giraffes, geese, greenery, gags, girls, guineas, gnus, gravity, gremlins, Gielgud, giants, genitals, Geoffs and, of course, the show's perennial final round, General Ignorance. To name a few. Whether you are looking for fascinating historical nuggets or crude toilet humour, you will not be bored by what there is to offer here.

For newbies, there is no better time to get into the show, as the episode count has increased from 12 to 16 and the panellists featured vary from regulars like Ronni Ancona, Clive Anderson, Bill Bailey, Danny Baker, Jo Brand, Rob Brydon, Jimmy Carr, Jeremy Clarkson, Hugh Dennis, Rich Hall, Andy Hamilton, Phill Jupitus, Sean Lock, David Mitchell, Dara Ó Briain, Liza Tarbuck and Johnny Vegas to newcomers like Jack Dee, John Hodgman, Barry Humphries, Lee Mack, Graham Norton, Sue Perkins, Jan Ravens, David Tennant and Sandi Toksvig. Indeed, many of them contribute to the annual - Clive Anderson researches Gordons, Bill Bailey teaches an air guitar masterclass, Phill Jupitus gives us historical mashups and a Radio 4 ideas machine, Sean Lock explores GILFS (Goats I'd Love to Farm), and Graham Norton, rather obviously, looks at Grahams. Others, too, offer their wisdom, with Rowan Atkinson, for example, showing us the many faces of a gambler. Plus, there's a new take on Sudoku, some cartoons ('Guerilla Gardeners' is particularly memorable), a quiz or 'Gee-Kwiz!', a crossword, a wordsearch, a Famous Five parody featuring the QI Elves (the researchers who contribute much of the show's output), a Glossoplegia (panels which basically contain memorable quotes from episodes alongside quaintly amusing pictures of the panellists) and a lovely introduction by The One They Call Stephen Fry. The contents page will also help keep things in gear.

Curiously, this is not, as you might expect, the seventh annual, as the letters A, B, C and D have not yet had annuals dedicated to them. Maybe in the future we shall see these delights. In the meantime, there are the 'E' (The QI Annual 2008) and 'F' (The QI Annual 2009) annuals to begin with. And, to add to your curiosity, might I also suggest listening to The Museum of Curiosity, a similarly-themed radio show presented by John Lloyd (the aforementioned producer on QI and the editor of the annual, who co-created the show and its concept with co-editor John Mitchinson) and assisted by Bill Bailey in the first series and Sean Lock in the second. If you like QI, you'll probably like this too. The first is available on CD (The Museum of Curiosity (BBC Audio)), the second will presumably follow, and a third series and spin-off book are also planned.

And if you're really interested, there are books relating to General Ignorance (QI: The Book of General Ignorance (The Noticeably Stouter Edition)), Animal Ignorance (QI: The Book of Animal Ignorance), the Dead (QI: The Book of the Dead) and Advanced Banter (QI: Advanced Banter); DVDs of the 'A' (QI : Complete BBC Series 1 [2003] [DVD]), 'B' (QI: The B Series [DVD]) and 'C' series (QI - The C Series [DVD]); not one, but two interactive games; and not one, not two, but three books by one of the elves, Justin Pollard.

An 'H' series is forthcoming, but will there be an 'H' annual? Who knows, but I hope there is, and hope that there are many more to come, because the QI Annual 2010 is a great stocking-filler for Christmas and grandly entertaining for the whole family. Witty from one page to the next, hilarious from the first word to the last, you will not want to put this down.

Overall, it's...erm...well...good!