Mental Floss: Scatterbrained (Mental_floss) (Paperback)

by Editors Of Mental Floss (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"For the discerning intellect, Mental Floss cleans out the cobwebs." (Chicago Tribune )

"The titans of trivia." (Newsweek )

"An ideal reference to settle arguments or jog your memory." (Calgary Herald )

"A lot like that professor of yours who peppered his tests with raunchy jokes: it makes learning fun." (Newsweek )

"A delightfully eccentric and eclectic new magazine." (Washington Post )

"Part scholarly journal, part Spy magazine protg." (Charlotte Observer )

Product Description

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 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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (July 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060882506
• ISBN-13: 978-0060882501
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #230,137 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trivia-tastic, July 17, 2006

By	Mr C. A. Higgins (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is an immense collection of trivia, loosely related by tangential connecting facts. For example, a story about famous downfalls which recounts Oscar Wilde's end says: "But it's not like Wilde was angry enough to start a hunger strike or anything...." And then we're off into "The Greatest Hunger Strikers Ever." Scatterbrained is much like "The Areas of My Expertise" (John Hodgman), except not made-up. And with fewer hobo facts.

The Scatterbrained approach to trivia is very readable, like a talkative dinner guest who goes on endless factual tangents. It's amusing and fun, and offers you plenty of chances to bail out when you've had enough (for example, when you've completed your business in the, uh, bathroom). This would also make a nice (albeit small) coffee-table book, as it's the sort of thing your guests can leaf through and call out interesting, often bizarre anecdotes.

Nerdy note: this book was co-edited by noted Young Adult author John Green. Fans of "Looking for Alaska" will appreciate "Fond Farewells: The Best and Worst of Famous People's Last Words" on page 125, and fans of "An Abundance of Katherines" will enjoy "Math Nerds Gone Wild (And by Wild, We Mean Nuts)" on page 132.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun, hip, funny and interesting., July 7, 2006

By	Ransom D. Riggs (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Chock-full of funny factoids to make you look smart at cocktail parties. An easy-reading smorgasboard of truisms both bizarre and interesting, all linked together. Bathroom reading for the MENSA set.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Connecting Unrelated Facts to Connect the World You Want To Understand, September 29, 2006

By	Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Marcus Chown's recent book, "The Quantum Zoo: A Tourist's Guide to a Never-Ending Universe" deals with quantum physics in a way that effectively uses popular culture references as a means toward understanding the world around us through scientific theory. Surprisingly, this book covers similar ground but from a completely non-scientific perspective by interconnecting seemingly unrelated trivia facts toward another view of the world. As you can assess, both books provide value to their respective audiences.

"Scatterbrained" is another slim volume from the editors of Mental Floss Magazine, a bimonthly launched in 2001 and targeted to aspiring Trivial Pursuit masters. This one takes nine isolated threads of facts to show how you could possibly make sense of the world. Granted, the connections can be rather tenuous, sometimes like an unending broken record on the turntable, but they are fun simply to track just to see where the lines of thought will go. It's a bit like playing a more expansive version of the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game except anything, no matter how trivial, is up for grabs.

A prototypical example is Chapter 4, "Humpty Dumpty to Having a Great Fall to Getting Put Back Together Again" You see the links between the fairy tale character, hunger strikes, celebrity trials, disasters that occur in autumn, diamonds, pseudonyms, the periodic table, trivia about the Web, the history of tattoos, and historic reunions. It's definitely a meandering journey for a less receptive mind but one that makes sense for any world-class trivia expert who can connect anything with anything. And for them, it's quite a fun read.