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Of all human qualities, humour is perhaps the most puzzling. Why do
audiences laugh at catchphrases but don’t laugh at jokes they
have heard before? Why are words with a K in them generally found
to be funnier? In this probing exploration, William Hartston
interrogates every aspect of the evolution of humour and our
attitudes toward it in hot pursuit of a Grand Unified Theory of
Humour. From comedy in ancient Greece and jokes in ancient Rome, to
laughter in the Bible and the secret of comic delivery, from how
humour changed following the American Civil War, to the way Mark
Twain influenced written comedy in the English-speaking world,
William leaves no stone unturned in his quest to understand what
makes us chuckle.
How old is the sloth? How do sloths have sex? How did a sloth save
Dublin? The answers to these questions, and more, are found in this
wonderfully entertaining celebration of the sloth. Walking readers
through the sloth's evolutionary history - from the prehistoric
ground sloth to modern pygmy - William Hartston reveals the sloth's
fascinating journey from maligned mammal to cause celebre.
Playfully peppered with science and filled with factoids, Sloths is
a love-letter to the most anachronistic, and just a little bit
ridiculous, of animals. 'Riveting... Sloths is as comprehensive a
look at the instincts, lifestyle and capacities of this curious
creature as you are ever likely to need.' Daily Express
HERE ARE MANY, MANY THINGS THAT NOBODY KNOWS . . . Why are so many
giraffes gay? Has human evolution stopped? Where did our alphabet
come from? Can robots become self-aware? Can lobsters recognize
other lobsters by sight? What goes on inside a black hole? Are cell
phones bad for us? Why can't we remember anything from our earliest
years? Full of the mysteries of life, the universe and everything,
The Things that Nobody Knows is a fascinating and unputdownable
exploration of the limits of human knowledge of our planet, its
history and culture, and the universe beyond.
A delightful and witty treasure trove of utterly useless
information by the author of The Things That Nobody Knows. Most
encyclopaedias are boring. They are so packed with worthy but dull
facts that a great deal of weird and wonderful material is squeezed
out. The Encyclopaedia of Everything Else takes the opposite
approach and leaves out all the dreary stuff you can find
elsewhere. The result is the most fascinating, astonishing, varied
and utterly useless collection of information ever assembled and
organized between two covers. From aardvark tooth bracelets to the
genus of tropical weevils known as Zyzzyva, via Mark Twain's views
about cabbages, this is a quarter of a million words of sublime
pointlessness.
From ancient riddles to modern Sudoku, people have been fascinated
by puzzles. Whether they are seen as a glorious waste of time, a
harmless way to spend a train journey or a valuable way of
exercising the mind, the lure of puzzles has been irresistible. By
using over a hundred examples of the most mindbending, the most
challenging, the most satisfying, or simply the most humorous of
puzzles throughout the ages, William Hartston traces the
development of brainteasers of all varieties and the increasing
ingenuity of puzzle setters from ancient civilisations to modern
puzzle crazes.
There are many, many more things that nobody knows...! Why do we
have five fingers? Do animals have a sense of humour? Did the
universe have a beginning? What causes deja vu? Why do cats purr?
How fast did dinosaurs move? In Even More Things That Nobody Knows,
William Hartston once again explores the limits of human knowledge,
revealing 501 further mysteries in subjects as diverse as
cosmology, mathematics, animal behaviour, medical science, music,
art, language and literature. From the trivial to the profound,
this is an enthralling and enlightening investigation into the
things we just don't know, and which lurk tantalizingly beyond the
bounds of our understanding.
There are many, many things that nobody knows... Do animals have a
sense of humour? Why do we have five fingers? What did Jesus do in
his youth? Has human evolution stopped? Can robots become
self-aware? What goes on inside a black hole? Bringing together The
Things That Nobody Knows and Even More Things That Nobody Knows,
this bumper volume takes us on a guided tour of 1,001 gaps in our
knowledge of cosmology, mathematics, animal behaviour, medical
science, music, art and literature.
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