Book 8: The Second Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson (reading notes)

I love trivia, which is why I, while I still watched TV on a regular basis, enjoyed watching quiz shows. QI was no exception. For those who don't know what QI is and are loath to click on the link or don't trust Wikipedia, QI is a comedy quiz show on BBC television in which two teams of three comedians each are quizzed by a seventh comedian. Stephen Fry was its first presenter and later Sandi Toksvig, herself a regular panellist in the show, took over.

The aim of the game is fun and this spin-off book gets its title from one of the rounds of the show: General Ignorance, which makes fun of the more common general knowledge round of other quiz shows. The questions in that round are ones that seem easy, as most people think they know the answer to them, but those "everybody knows" answers are in fact wrong, so the aim is really to set people straight in an entertaining way.

Although it is tempting, I don't think I will say why I no longer enjoy watching QI, but I certainly did enjoy this book. Not only does it set right some misconceptions, but it also contains a whole lot of stuff I didn't know, and I enjoyed it every bit as much as the first book.

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Reading in Reykjavík

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