trivia that will make you laugh!

Does anyone remember The Book of Lists? 

​Originally published in 1977, the book was famously banned in parts of the USA where censors deemed some lists too saucy or vulgar for the general reading public.  In Australia, it was freely available - and immensely popular.  Why? As author and list-master David Wallenchinsky says: Lists bring order to chaos, and the original Book of Lists lassoed and tied down inventories you’ve probably never even considered.

Here’s a sample:

• 10 Mammoth Cheeses
• 9 People Who Died Laughing*
• 8 Remarkable Pistol Duels
• 7 Great Sausage Events
• 23 Actors and Actresses Who Turned Down Great Roles
• 9 Cats Who Traveled Long Distances to Return Home
• 5 of the World's Most Oft-Sighted Lake and Sea Monsters

 
TZ had a copy of The BOL.  It disintegrated via overuse.  It really didn’t stand a chance.
 
If you want to sharpen your Trivia Zoo game while laughing to prostration, this could be the book for you!
 
Likewise, magazine mental_floss has their lifted witty and informative online content and created a series of books that follow the path laid out by Wallechinsky et. al.  Mental_Floss: The Book: The Greatest Lists in the History of Listory expounds on such gems as:

• Four TV Shows That Changed the Course of History
• Ten “Q” Words That Aren’t “Q-U” Word
• Four Horrifying Parasites to Keep You Awake at Night
• Eight Fake Archaeological Finds
• Shameless Abuses of Diplomatic Immunity
• Five Units of Measurement Weirder Than the Metric System

 
Honing your trivia skills doesn’t demand you focus on just the cold, hard facts.  The team at Trivia Zoo source their questions from every canon they can find because it’s fun to broaden our horizons and soak up the sun from a different data world every day!
 
Till next time.
TZ
 
* Including CALCHAS (Greek soothsayer, c. 12th century BC)
 
Calchas, the wisest soothsayer of Greece during the Trojan War, advised the construction of the notorious wooden horse. One day he was planting grapevines when a fellow soothsayer wandered by and foretold that Calchas would never drink the wine produced from the grapes. After the grapes ripened, wine was made from them, and Calchas invited the soothsayer to share it with him. As Calchas held a cup of the wine in his hand, the soothsayer repeated the prophecy. This incited such a fit of laughter in Calchas that he choked and died. Another version of Calchas' death states that he died of grief after losing a soothsaying match in which he failed to predict correctly the number of piglets that a pig was about to give birth to.
From The Book of Lists by David Wallenchinsky and Amy Wallace