A gleefully gruesome look at the actual science behind the most outlandish, cartoonish, and impossible deaths you can imagine What would happen if you took a swim outside a deep-sea submarine wearing only a swimsuit? How long could you last if you stood on the surface of the sun? How far could you actually get in digging a hole to China? Paul Doherty, senior staff scientist at San Francisco's famed Exploratorium Museum, and writer Cody Cassidy explore the real science behind these and other fantastical scenarios, offering insights into physics, astronomy, anatomy, and more along the way. Is slipping on a banana peel as hazardous to your health as the cartoons imply? Answer: Yes. Banana peels ooze a gel that turns out to be extremely slippery. Your foot and body weight provide the pressure. The gel provides the humor (and resulting head trauma). Can you die by shaking someone's hand? Answer: Yes. That's because, due to atomic repulsion, you've never actually touched another person's hand. If you could, the results would be as disastrous as a medium-sized hydrogen bomb. If you were Cookie Monster, just how many cookies could you actually eat in one sitting? Answer: Most stomachs can hold up to sixty cookies, or around four liters. If you eat or drink more than that, you're approaching the point at which the cookies would break through the lesser curvature of your stomach, and then you'd better call an ambulance to Sesame Street.

'Rather jolly and very helpful' The Times Need to swot up on your Shakespeare? The ultimate guide to the Bard, perfect for the Shakespeare aficionado and general reader alike. If you've always felt a bit embarrassed at your precarious grasp on the plot of Othello, or you haven't a clue what a petard (as in 'hoist with his own petard') actually is, then fear not, because this, at last, is the perfect guide to the Bard. From the authors of the number-one bestselling Homework for Grown-ups, Shakespeare for Grown-ups is the essential book for anyone keen to deepen their knowledge of they plays and sonnets. For parents helping with their children's homework, casual theatre-goers who want to enhance their enjoyment of the most popular plays and the general reader who feels they should probably know more about Britain's most splendid scribe, Shakespeare for Grown-ups covers Shakespeare's time; his personal life; his language; his key themes; his less familiar works and characters; his most famous speeches and quotations; phrases and words that have entered general usage, and much more.

No matter what we're into, geeks of the world share a few common traits: intense and unconditional enthusiasm and the relentless urge to know, and then prove we know, every last thing about the objects of our affection. The ultimate quiz book for old-school nerds, Vintage Geek celebrates a splendid selection of 20th-century fandoms, from Fifties' sci fi cinema, Sixties' Star Trek and Seventies' Stephen King to Eighties' actioners, Nineties' Batman 'toons and more. With a foreword from Simpsons writer Mike Reiss, Vintage Geek additionally features a fabulous fifty celebrity-penned questions from the likes of Mark Hamill, John Carpenter, George Takei, Sam Neill, Mark Millar, Tom Savini, Pat Mills, Yeardley Smith and Sam J. Jones. Vintage Geek is here to chew bubblegum and assess the limits of your trivia knowledge - and it's all out of bubblegum!

Jede Zeit hat ihre Diskurse, an denen epochenspezifische Argumentations- und Denkweisen erkennbar werden. Vor mehr als dreihundert Jahren, Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts, hatte Frankreichs Koenig Ludwig XIV. damit begonnen, seine Expansionspolitik erneut kriegerisch zu verstarken. Dies rief zahlreiche Publizisten, Pamphletisten, Drucker und Verleger auf den Plan, und ein zeitlich wie raumlich ausgedehnter Diskurs uber die Expansionsbestrebungen Frankreichs entstand. Teil dieses Diskurses ist die Flugschrift Franckreichs Geist von 1689, die sowohl in vielfaltigen deutschsprachigen Varianten als auch in Ausgaben in den wichtigsten europaischen Sprachen weite Verbreitung fand. Sie ist so ein besonders pragnantes Beispiel dafur, wie ein kritischer Diskurs in den Massenmedien dieser Zeit gefuhrt wurde. Daher eignet sich diese Flugschrift besonders fur die Analyse beispielhafter Auspragungen von Begrundungsmustern und argumentativem Handeln in der fruhen Neuzeit.

Which president holds the record for the most vetoes? Which president had the largest shoe size? Who was the only president to serve in both World War I and World War II? Who was the tallest president? These questions and many, many more are answered in "The Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia."
Divided into 11 chapters, "The Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia" looks at every aspect of our heads of state and presidential history: Citizens, Officers, Heroes, and Saviors; Stumping: From Front Porch to Facebook; The Pledge and the Parties; Inside the Oval Office; The Perpetual Podium; Home, Hotel, Parlor, Playground; First Families; Impeachment, Controversy, Shame; Assassination; Death, and National Mourning; Presidents in the Popular Imagination; and The Quotable President.
Many of the questions are accompanied with photographs of artifacts from the Smithsonian's collections. The "Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia" is sure to puzzle the trivia buff and presidential expert alike

The Book of Seconds reveals the exciting, intriguing and heroic runners-up who until now have been kept in the shadow of the firsts. Did you know that the winner of the second Tour de France rode 25 miles on two flat tyres? Or that the second crew to land on the Moon danced to a pop song in zero gravity? Step forward all the nearly-men and nearly-women, the nearly skyscrapers, nearly-LPs and nearly deserts. Your time in the spotlight has come at last.