Why Girls Can't Throw: ...and Other Questions You Always Wanted Answered - Softcover

Symons, Mitchell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060835184 ISBN 13: 9780060835187

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2006

Synopsis

Warning: the truth can be shocking, seductive, offensive, outrageous...even disgusting!

Are you perplexed by the mysteries of the universe, confounded by the workings of the human body, prone to pondering the great imponderables? At long last, the answers are here for every inquiring mind that's not afraid to face up to the cold, hard facts of life. The author who brought you That Book . . . of Perfectly Useless Information now addresses the quirky, the eclectic, and the essential conundrums of our age in Why Girls Can't Throw . . . and Other Questions You Always Wanted Answered, including:

• What's the kindest way to tell a friend he has halitosis?
• Is it cheaper to send yourself as a package to Australia rather than fly on an airplane?
• Are there any benefits to smoking?
• Is it true that Keith Richards used to regularly replace all the blood in his body?

About this title

About the Author

Mitchell Symons is the author of Why Girls Can't Throw, as well as This Book, That Book, and The Other Book. The creator of dozens of crossword, trivia, and humor books, Symons is a columnist for London's Sunday Express.

From the Back Cover

Warning: the truth can be shocking, seductive, offensive, outrageous...even disgusting!

Are you perplexed by the mysteries of the universe, confounded by the workings of the human body, prone to pondering the great imponderables? At long last, the answers are here for every inquiring mind that's not afraid to face up to the cold, hard facts of life. The author who brought you That Book . . . of Perfectly Useless Information now addresses the quirky, the eclectic, and the essential conundrums of our age in Why Girls Can't Throw . . . and Other Questions You Always Wanted Answered, including:

• What's the kindest way to tell a friend he has halitosis?
• Is it cheaper to send yourself as a package to Australia rather than fly on an airplane?
• Are there any benefits to smoking?
• Is it true that Keith Richards used to regularly replace all the blood in his body?

Reviews

The structure of Symons's genial entry in the humorous trivia genre is simple, if hardly scientific: the author thinks of a question ("Would it kill someone if you dropped a coin off the top of a skyscraper and it hit them?") and then contacts an expert, who is usually annoyed by Symons's questions (he calls many authorities more than once), for the answer (in this case, no; the coin wouldn't be moving fast enough). More often than not, Symons (That Book... of Perfectly Useless Information) eschews the specialist route and just calls up a friend who might know something; an out-of-work actor mate tells Symons why thespians won't say the name of the play Macbeth (long ago, when most towns had a theater, if a play was bombing, they'd put on an old standard like "the Scottish play," making it a harbinger of bad luck). After about 20 or 30 of these entries, the effect begins to pall, especially since many of the answers are based on dodgy anecdotal evidence. But then, this is a book designed for skipping around, and there's always something better just a few pages away—who knew, for instance, that three popes have died during sex? (Feb.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060835184
• ISBN 13: 9780060835187
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192