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Rating: 
Summary: One or two gems here and usually interesting
Review: Smith answers a lot of questions that we forget to ask, like why is horse meat considered inedible (it is associated with pagan sacrifice, he says). There are some gems like why do we shake hands -- yes, its a gesture that we do not bear arms, but did you know the shaking was to shake out any concealed knives up the sleeve?However, I dont know if he is very good on science. He says the sky is blue because the atmosphere scatters the blue light more than any other part of the spectrum, but then he says that sunsets are red because they scatter red light less than other colors. Not consistent, obviously.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is great!
Review: This book really is great! I have never before had a book that every single member of my family actually fights over!! My little brother, my big sister, my mom, and my dad:every single one of us loves this book! It has taught me so many great facts! I even was awarded a free bottle of champagne on an airplane recently thanks to this book: a woman had a nose bleed the whole flight and this book explained how nose bleeds can be reduced or stopped by putting an ice pack on the back of your neck, and guess what it worked!! On top of that, once we reached our destination, all the people in our tour group would beg me to read excerpts of this book to them and the people in our tour group came from all over the world, from England to Gautemala- almost every single one of them wanted to purchase this book by the end of our trip! If you are considering purchasing this book..do it! I promise you will not regret it-this book is way too great to pass up!
Rating: 
Summary: A Real Letdown
Review: When I was first given this book as a gift, I was quite excited. I am a trivia buff and the questions being answered in the book were really fun subjects. As I read, however, I quickly became suspicious. Why didn't the author allow virtually any room for multiple explanations of the origins of phrases and customs? How could he possibly have done the research required to answer all these questions thoroughly? Why did he seem to answer almost all questions with such certainty, even those with a brief explanation? Doing some research of my own on a few questions (why is sidespin in pool called English, for example) and found that the author is often just passing on apocrophyl stories and urban legends. It seems as though mostly he researched perhaps one or two sources to answer each question. Since getting to the bottom of urban legends and myths are what caused me to get so interested in trivia in the first place, I found this book a real letdown.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Letdown
Review: When I was first given this book as a gift, I was quite excited. I am a trivia buff and the questions being answered in the book were really fun subjects. As I read, however, I quickly became suspicious. Why didn't the author allow virtually any room for multiple explanations of the origins of phrases and customs? How could he possibly have done the research required to answer all these questions thoroughly? Why did he seem to answer almost all questions with such certainty, even those with a brief explanation? Doing some research of my own on a few questions (why is sidespin in pool called English, for example) and found that the author is often just passing on apocrophyl stories and urban legends. It seems as though mostly he researched perhaps one or two sources to answer each question. Since getting to the bottom of urban legends and myths are what caused me to get so interested in trivia in the first place, I found this book a real letdown.
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