Editors Of Mental Floss

This is a fun little collection of factoids about people and events through history, organized in sections based on the seven deadly sins. It is a bit dated in some cases, as it is about 10 years old, but the older info is still fascinating. When I find myself thinking that the world today is going to hell in a handbasket, I can reflect on these little tidbits and realize it's really not any worse than it's ever been. Humans have been getting up to cruel, crazy, and kinky things for as long show more as they have existed! show less

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: The bathroom read to end all bathroom reads!

What does Greece (the country) have to do with Grease (the movie)? And what does Grease (the movie) have to do with greasy food? Plenty, if you ask the folks at mental_floss.

Based on the magazine's "Scatterbrained" section, the mental_floss gang has taken on the Mount Everest of trivia challenges: connecting the entire world through the juiciest facts they could find. How do you get from Puppies to Stalin; from show more Humpty Dumpty to Elizabeth Taylor; from the Hundred Years' War to 8 Minute Abs; or even from Schoolhouse Rock to Abstract Expressionism? You'll just have to open up the book to find out.

My Review: This was the perfect book to read while in the throes of this bloody cold. Perfect amounts of information, useless, and ideal amounts of stupid humor.

For example, St. Fiacre (an Irish dude) is the patron saint of de-hemorrhoiding one's self. Did you ever, even one time in your entire life, stop to ponder the existence of, or need for, such a saintly specialty? Apparently Fiacre (how on earth does one say this collection of letters?) healed the sick (men only!) by laying on of hands. Give that a minute to sink in.

The old perv.

I'd vaguely heard tell of the existence of a shadowy Dowager Empress with a lot of power in Chinese history. Didn't know she was called Cixi (suppose that rhymes with Trixie?) and didn't realize that, within months of her death in 1908, the Imperial part of Chinese history was history. She dies, the Emperor loses the throne, and China starts on the path to being our banker via a horrible stint under Mao (an engineered population-reducing famine, his INSANE edict to kill all dogs! The Rotten Shitheel!) (BTW these facts came from this weird little book, too).

Bite-sized morsels of interesting factlets (does anyone besides me remember a rice-paper-wrapped candy called Aplets, or Cotlets? I loved those things), many of which make me curious to go in search of context and depth (Cixi being a good example) for the stories. Perfect for a restless-brain day.

On the other hand, really not much use in the thing. I got it as a sale book. I wouldn't pay $12.95 for it! show less

I remembered the first Mental Floss book (History of the World) being funny, but not hilarious. I found some of What's the Difference hilarious and forced MT to listen to (in his opinion) way too much of it.

What's the Difference is a sort of cheat sheet for those things in life that are easy to mix-up: i.e. vs e.g. or The Illiad vs. The Odyssey or my personal achilles heel: Crazy Horse vs. Sitting Bull vs. Geronimo (I always mix these up!). They all start with a box at the top that includes show more a "Quick Trick" for telling the two subjects apart in a snap; some of them are really useful and some are more bent towards humour. Each vs. is two pages long with succinct, interesting and sometimes very funny summations of each subject.

This is the perfect book for long-term reading; since each vs. is only two pages long, it's easy to pick up and put down when you only have a moment to read. I, however, devoured it because I liked the writing, I love odd facts and there were more than a few of these that I found helpful. I had originally planned to skim through the ones I already knew the difference between, but found myself reading them just for the wisecracks.

A fun book; maybe a tad bit more fun than informative, but definitely worth it if you like fun facts. show less

Fun easy little 'trivia' book to read. Sound facts, though there is no citations (but mental_floss is a pretty good accredited source, so there might be only small trivial issues), it's easy to read, and light, basically a bathroom book. Broken down into the 7 deadly sins, it ranges the gambit from tiny and trivial interesting facts to large facts that we don't know (but probably should) to things like you know X but it's really Y. Overall fun book.