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Which way is the Earth spinning? Was Shakespeare a rebel? Is Wittgenstein always right? Would Mussolini have been interested in archaeology? These are the kind of provocative questions sometimes faced by applicants at Oxbridge interviews. To encourage everyone to try wrapping their brains around them, Cambridge graduate John Farndon has compiled his second selection of such questions, each with an essay illustrating possible ways of answering.

Regarded by some as British comedy’s greatest double act, Pete & Dud produced a huge oeuvre of material during their decades working together. Dozens of transcribed sketches and scenes have been carefully selected here, arranged by production from untelevised Beyond the Fringe sketches that were hugely successful at Royal Variety Performances to radical, taboo-busting Derek and Clive LPs. Off-mint.

With 50 themed quizzes and 1,000 questions, this volume of trivia challenges invites readers to test their knowledge of the 1980s. Each 20-question quiz is colourfully designed and illustrated, and the themes include musical idols, soap operas and the royal wedding.

With 50 themed quizzes and 1,000 questions, this volume of trivia challenges invites readers to test their knowledge of the 1970s. Each 20-question quiz is colourfully designed and illustrated, and the themes include cars, sport and sitcoms.

With 50 themed quizzes and 1,000 questions, this volume of trivia challenges invites readers to test their knowledge of the 1960s. Each 20-question quiz is colourfully designed and illustrated, and the themes include fashion, the space race and musical icons.

With 50 themed quizzes and 1,000 questions, this volume of trivia challenges invites readers to test their knowledge of the 1950s. Each 20-question quiz is colourfully designed and illustrated, and the themes include classic films, school days and the Queen’s coronation.

With 50 themed quizzes and 1,000 questions, this volume of trivia challenges invites readers to test their knowledge of the 1940s. Each 20-question quiz is colourfully designed and illustrated, and the themes include rationing, Bing Crosby and advertising slogans.

The comedian, actress and writer had always viewed dog owners slightly askance – they talked obsessively about their pets, and their clothes and sofas were covered in hair. Then she got Peggy, a shih-tzu bichon-frise cross puppy, and discovered the joy and comfort of canine companionship amid life-changing crises, and its lessons in life, love, trust and friendship. Slightly off-mint

‘Among herbage raw sallads should be shunned.’ This and other questionable pearls of wisdom populate John Hill's lifestyle manual for long life, written in 1750 but with some advice that has stood the test of time.

From 1864 until 1938 The Illustrated Police News provided a cheap pictorial roundup of the week’s most startling news stories. Hundreds of examples of the publication are displayed here, with cultural and historical notes accompanying headlines such as ‘Child Carried Off by an Eagle’ and ‘An Elephant Hunt in London’ alongside more serious political and criminal subjects.

For anyone who slept through every maths lesson at school or intentionally forgot how the Fibonacci sequence works, this light-hearted guide makes catching up on maths a simple, enjoyable process. Liz Strachan takes readers from basic addition and subtraction to Pascal, Pythagoras and polygons, and teaches handy mathematical tricks such as the Rule of 72.

The numerous archival images, cartoons, quotes and programme excerpts in this companion book to the BBC Radio 4 series The Infinite Monkey Cage pay homage to the 1970s Look and Learn annuals, which thrilled children with their miscellany of science. Here, Cox and Ince inspire adult scientific wonder through jokes, jibes and nostalgic digressions, anchored by serious explorations of thermodynamics, particle physics, big bang theory, space travel, extra-terrestrial life and, of course, infinity.

Regularly featured in Private Eye, Teresa Monachino’s playful graphic designs present English words in ways that expose the language’s oddities. Her imaginative use of typography (Gill Sans and Joanna for font watchers) expresses – without commentary – how English can mislead us with quirks of spelling and pronunciation, contradictory proverbs and tautological redundancies.

Barry Fantoni was a member of the Sixties scene, a painter and illustrator who also had a television career and close friendships with famous musicians such as Ray Davies. This memoir provides a wry insider’s view of contemporary London, from drunken Private Eye editorial meetings with Peter Cook to overdosing at TV Centre and an awards ceremony with the Beatles.

This book of puzzles is designed to sharpen your powers of recollection. Each of its three sections of increasing difficulty contains questions on history, geography, maths, science, the arts, sport and food and drink. Solutions are given at the end.

Following his equally tongue-in-cheek The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have, Dennis DiClaudio turns his attention to the self-diagnosis of 45 psychological disorders including kleptomania and exploding head syndrome. Each entry covers common symptoms, causes and treatment options, enlivened with an inner monologue from an imaginary patient.

Since they were first awarded in 1901, Nobel Prizes have honoured hundreds of people who ‘have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind’. This collection of quotations, from laureates including Winston Churchill, Toni Morrison and Max Planck, shares their astute, witty and poignant observations on such topics as truth and falsehood, marriage, democracy and technology.

Presenting a whip-smart analysis of modern masculinity and sexual economics, comedian, podcaster and writer Sara Pascoe investigates the evolutionary forces that influence human desire. Part comedy, part anthropological study, the book draws on anecdotal experience, interviews and in-depth research to offer a fresh, sometimes uncomfortable, take on subjects including paying for sex, pornography and the 'conundrum of heterosexuality'.

Writing from occasionally bitter experience and with her trademark irreverent approach, Jenny Eclair offers an A–Z compendium of the menopause. Including C for carb-loading, H for hormones and N for night sweats and insomnia, she shines light, humour and humanity on navigating this life stage, and offers common-sense advice on dealing with its emotional and physical challenges.

Looking at why people are kind and whether they could be kinder, Henry James Garrett explores the sources and the limitations of human empathy. He lays out the case for developing a new morality, and suggests a number of adjustments, both big and small, that we can implement in order to live our best lives.

Deborah Frances-White begins each chapter in this witty treatise with the line 'I'm a feminist, but…' – followed by a confession that undermines her assertion. Covering a broad range of feminist territory, both ideological and historical, she muses on subjects including the diet industry and Donald Trump and shares excerpts from her podcast interviews with like-minded performers and activists.

Charles M Schulz's wry depiction of childhood in suburban America, Peanuts grew to become one of the best-loved comic strips in history. These volumes chart the early trials and tribulations of characters such as sweet-natured Linus and his indefatigable sister Lucy, laconic beagle Snoopy, and, of course, 'Good Ol' Charlie Brown'. The three titles included in this set are: Peanuts 1950–1952 (Read more...) Peanuts 1953–1954 (Read more...) Peanuts 1955–1956 (Read more...)

When we use language to persuade people in many everyday situations we still employ lines of argument that Aristotle categorized as ‘ethos’, ‘logos’ and ‘pathos’. As Sam Leith introduces the art of rhetoric, he traces its history since the Ancient Greeks, providing accessible explanations of its techniques and terminology and profiling ‘champions of rhetoric’ including Cicero and Abraham Lincoln.

Absurd or inadvertently hilarious, all the signs in this collection are genuine public notices spotted around the world. Highlights include the road sign advising drivers to 'keep your eyes open' and the tourist sign labelling a 'Bottomless Pit – 65 feet deep'.

Explaining how plants and animals use their variously slippery, gooey and sticky attributes to thrive, this guide, written by scientists, offers facts about eighty of the earth's ooziest inhabitants, allocating each a slime rating from 0–5. Age 8+

The successful children’s author Anthony McGowan describes his misadventures in everyday life, as he seeks a suitable London coffee shop or museum in which to write in comfort. The resulting memoir resembles a more geeky, modern version of Pepys.

Odd and unfashionable vehicles such as the Fiat Multipla and Chrysler PT Cruiser are lampooned in this light-hearted roll of dishonour but popular models such as the Ford Fusion, Nissan Almera and Vauxhall Corsa also make the list.

Celebrating England’s long tradition of tolerance towards unconventional men of the cloth, these short biographies describe how clergy have displayed their own unique forms of holiness by treading ‘the thin line between prophet and clown’. The peculiar parsons include a mermaid-impersonator, a collector of French pornography and the incumbent who surrounded his vicarage with barbed wire – not to mention the infamous Vicar of Stiffkey, whose performance as Daniel in a den of real lions brought predictably fatal results.

From starting the day with the aid of his Bed Launcher & Auto Dresser, to taking a stroll in Hover Wellies – handy for overcoming large puddles – Wallace has ingenious gadgets to ease him through a range of tasks. With descriptions of how they work, diagrams and photographs, the workings of 20 of his inventions are revealed here, including the Garden Exit System and Pronto Print device (patent pending). Age 9+

Starting with quiz night in the Prince of Wales on Highgate Hill, Mark Mason sets off in search of the perfect quiz question. In venues as far-flung as a hotel bar in Edinburgh and a village pub in Suffolk, he meets the aficionados of the quiz world and a veritable deluge of facts, figures and trivia.

This compendium will surely provide ‘entertainment for the last 15 minutes of the day’ whatever your inclination: mathematicians can drift off to half a page of pi; motorists might mug up on the Luton, Croydon and Belgravia methods of washing a car; there’s a handy list of people you are not allowed to marry (CofE rules); and for literary types there are the rude bits from Samuel Pepys.

In this sequel to Elephants on Acid Alex Boese delves once more into the world of mad scientists and weird experimentation, whether a 1950s project to nuke the moon or self-experimenters getting stung by 78 species of Hymenoptera for the sake of science.

More than 75 per cent of the world’s population can communicate in one of the 20 most-spoken languages, from Vietnamese and Korean (85 million speakers each) to Mandarin and English (1.3 and 1.5 billion respectively). As he profiles these successful lingua francas, Dorren discusses key features including their origins, scripts and pronunciation. He also analyses how linguistic oddities, such as the different ‘genderlects’ spoken by Japanese men and women, reflect aspects of cultural and political history.

Ben Blatt brings his skills as a statistician to bear on the writing styles of authors from Shakespeare to JK Rowling, using numbers to reveal the nuts and bolts of their writing – including word counts, favourite words, how simple their sentences are or what percentage of the book jacket is taken up by their name.

‘You wouldn’t believe the dedication it takes to be a gorgeous, flaxen-haired, dermatologically perfect New York girl with a life that’s fabulous beyond belief’, but Moi (a Princeton graduate and fashion writer addicted to $345 jeans) is also searching for true love.

Billy Connelly recounts with customary humour his ten-week journey through the North West Passage, piloting an aeroplane over Iceberg Valley, trekking through mountains and kayaking through ice floes. Although in awe of the landscape, illustrated here with hundreds of photographs, it was his encounters with ordinary people that made the greatest impression, introducing him to traditions that were essential for survival in this challenging environment. Slightly off-mint.

Giles Coren’s anecdotes about his dining experiences, from childhood to professional restaurant critic, are interspersed with practical tips such as how to choose wisely from the menu, especially at a sushi restaurant, and how to complain effectively.

With entries covering nearly 300 examples of deception, delusion and fakery, this eclectic compendium for the age of Truthiness offers playful analysis of the many contexts in which beliefs and perceptions can be manipulated. These range from politics to video games and from the inscrutable paradoxes of ancient Greek philosophy to the Hitler Diaries, internet hoaxes and our puzzling enthusiasm for tribute bands.

David Sedaris is known for his humorous essays about ordinary life. Here he takes a more introspective turn as he describes buying a new holiday home and gives a personal account of his emotional response to finding himself alone, even though surrounded by family.

These extracts remind us that while Piglet may enjoy crunching on a haycorn and Eeyore is partial to a freshly picked thistle, Pooh is primarily defined by his insatiable appetite.

We all have moments when we catastrophise, but this soothing collection of quotations by and about Piglet, a Very Small Animal, will reassure even the most cautious of us.

Mme Marie Williams, the wife of an American dentist, lived in the apartment directly above Marcel Proust’s in 102 Boulevard Haussmann and, despite their proximity, Proust and Mme Williams wrote to one another. Proust’s were often about the noise, yet always exquisitely expressed and often accompanied by flowers; the 23 letters are presented here with a foreword by Jean-Yves Tadié. Translated, with an afterword, by Lydia Davis.

‘History is like a maze’, write the authors as they embark on this journey through 30 topics, inspired by their podcast series that promotes non-linear historical thinking. They reveal how our everyday world connects with the past in surprising, thought-provoking ways, including the use of paper clips as an anti-Nazi symbol, cats’ significance for the French Revolution and the links between letters, marriage, the Royal Navy and eggs.

Beginning with flatpack ‘Instructions for Assembling Your Pocket Playhouse’, Michael Frayn’s miniature sketches relish the absurdities of modern life. Here we find a telephone prayer answering service (‘Your prayer has been placed in a queue’); flirting academics in the Working Group on Gender Stereotyping in Indefinite Pronouns; and the nail-biting national semi-finals of the UK TV Watching Championship. Slightly off-mint.

Hilary Spiers’ debut novel saw the peaceful lives of Hester and Harriet changed forever. In this sequel the widowed sisters spend a week in Italy, where romance and new beginnings beckon, but there’s an awkward secret between them.

Specialist language is an intrinsic part of all sport, whether it is understanding an idiosyncratic scoring system or being able to correctly apply the terms peculiar to the technique or equipment of a game. Illustrated with more than 60 cartoons, this humorous look at the eccentricities of 50 popular sports explains how they are played and provides a lexicon of the terminology of each.

This reprint of an Edwardian guide to health and vitality provides advice on the importance of mental as well as physical rest and describes simple, low-impact bending and stretching exercises.

Jeremy Vine succeeded Jimmy Young as presenter of Radio 2's phone-in show in 2003 and since then has taken over 25,000 calls – including the joyous, the furious and the occasional joker. As well as his radio show, Vine is a familiar face on television, and his book describes working on everything from general election coverage to Strictly Come Dancing, but his emphasis is on his listeners ‘and all the surprises they spring’. Slightly off-mint.

The numerous archival images, cartoons, quotes and programme excerpts in this companion book to the BBC Radio 4 series The Infinite Monkey Cage pay homage to the 1970s Look and Learn annuals, which thrilled children with their miscellany of science. Here, Cox and Ince inspire adult scientific wonder through jokes, jibes and nostalgic digressions, anchored by serious explorations of thermodynamics, particle physics, Big Bang theory, space travel, extra-terrestrial life and, of course, infinity.

Never snap your fingers at a Belgian, give an Iranian the thumbs up or blow your nose near a Turk. This guide to international etiquette warns the traveller against faux pas that might be considered bad manners or signal outright hostility.

Having mined the archives of readers’ letters ‘like a chaffinch in search of the juiciest worms’, Iain Hollingshead presents a hugely entertaining selection that illustrates the British love and respect for animals, whether tame or wild, mammal, bird or amphibian, and the occasional stick insect. Violent dislike is reserved for flying insects, and the Scottish midge in particular. Slightly off-mint.

Were you born in a barn? Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? What becomes of the broken-hearted? From Shakespeare to Tamla Motown, Caroline Taggart tackles the origins and possible usefulness of the questions that never expect or need an answer.

This irreverent guide takes a peek at a perennially fascinating subject. A romp through the biological mechanics and history of human intercourse is spiced up with intimate true stories, public scandals, censorship, sex toys, fetishes, and a concise glossary of filthy language. Eclectic, entertaining and original, it reveals everything you always wanted to know about sex – and quite a few things you probably didn’t. Sexually explicit.

Coming to life in just a few, seemingly effortless lines and the occasional wash of colour, Edward Lear’s nonsense birds have personality, attitude and, quite often, very human traits. Drawing on the British Library collections, this book presents birds from several of Lear’s original nonsense books, and includes stories, limericks, birds for learning colours and birds for learning the alphabet.

The numerous archival images, cartoons, quotes and programme excerpts in this companion book to the BBC Radio 4 series The Infinite Monkey Cage pay homage to the 1970s Look and Learn annuals, which thrilled children with their miscellany of science. Here, Cox and Ince inspire adult scientific wonder through jokes, jibes and nostalgic digressions, anchored by serious explorations of thermodynamics, particle physics, Big Bang theory, space travel, extra-terrestrial life and, of course, infinity.

TV producer John Fisher first published his exploration of the great 20th-century comedians in 1973, tracing the tradition from music-hall pioneers such as Dan Leno and Max Miller through to the radio comics and the last of the breed in Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper and Ken Dodd. This completely revised and expanded 40th anniversary edition profiles over 30 of the giants of British entertainment and contains over 350 illustrations.

Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, hitchhiking around the galaxy after the demise of Earth, are in trouble: the Improbability Drive fails in their host’s ship, Arthur has jammed the computer by asking it for a cup of tea and the restaurant is 576,000 million miles away. Part two of the five-part Hitchhiker trilogy.

In 1980, when Britain had no 24-hour television news, internet, Twitter or demands for ‘transparency’, the cogs of government turned most mysteriously. Public enlightenment came with an intelligent, well-informed and hilarious TV series: Yes Minister and its sequel, Yes Prime Minister, which revealed and mercilessly lampooned what went on in Whitehall and Westminster. Graham McCann tells the story of the series and seeks out the real political fiascos that inspired it. Slightly off-mint.

While researching their earlier, groundbreaking Why Cats Paint, Burton Silver and Heather Busch discovered another strange phenomenon – people dancing with their cats. Apparently, the ancient art of cat dancing is a method of channelling feline energy. Twenty-one owners and their cats have been interviewed and photographed as they skip the light fantastic... Foreword by Swami Shakya Bahrain and a bibliography (!), should you wish to learn more. Slightly off-mint.

In this memoir a former police officer who appeared in the 2005 BBC series Country Cops recalls his 1970s childhood in the North Yorkshire countryside. In retrospect, it seems to him like a perpetual summer: the family setting off on holiday in his dad's Morris Traveller, its roof-rack piled high; bicycle adventures and boyish pranks; fishing and football; jam sandwiches and pop – all set amid the idyllic landscape of God's Own County, and peopled with larger-than-life characters.

From the splendour of Nelson's tomb in the crypt of St Paul's to the more commonplace gravestone of Eleanor Rigby in Liverpool, this guide selects the most interesting resting places to visit in Britain, telling the stories of the lives and deaths of the memorialized. Arranged geographically, the selection ranges from the much-visited shrine to Marc Bolan in Barnes to the Leicester car park where Richard III's remains were found.

What should we call 'something that looks like minced beef but isn't'? Minsk, of course! 'Luxuriant nostril hairs'? Utrillas! Three decades after Douglas Adams and QI creator John Lloyd compiled The Meaning of Liff, here is a new collection of more than 900 familiar things that have hitherto remained unnamed, an oversight now corrected by recycling the appellations of places near and far.

From the simple 'fishy smell' used in Southern Italy to the complexities of the Moutza (Greece, Africa and Pakistan), this book shows you how to get thrown out of places across the world. The meaning and usage of each gesture is explained, with a photograph demonstrating how to achieve its full insulting potential - or what not to do with your hands while travelling.

'You're nearly old enough to be dead, aren't you, Grandma?' 'If teachers keep asking you questions, does that mean they don't know much?' Compiled by former school inspector Gervase Phinn, this collection of children's disarming observations and impossible-to-answer questions proves Phinn’s point that 'on the whole' children are an amazing source of amusement and wonder.

What are the Windsors like in private? Are they just like us, or a breed apart? Nobody knows the royal family like their staff, who are intimately acquainted with their every quirk and eccentricity, but they are famously tight-lipped. However, through the memories of retired retainers, this book offers a humorous and affectionate glimpse of some endearing royal foibles – and reveals what the corgis eat for dinner.

Although assigned to major towns by the 1930s, postcodes were not in general use until towards the end of the 20th century. This humorous diary of a tour of Britain visits all 124 modern UK postcodes, making anecdotal observations about each area and identifying historical, geographical or cultural trivia, such as the fact that Strontian in PH (although not in Perth) is the only place in Britain to have a chemical element named after it.

Since 2006 the 'My Week' column in The Times has parodied days in the lives of such luminaries as David Cameron, Prince Harry, Vladimir Putin – and Jeremy Clarkson ('Wednesday... brainstorming new ways to be mean about the Germans'). The author has personally selected this collection and given the entries new introductions to place them in their political or social context.

To possess a penis, Sophocles said, is to be 'chained to a madman'. This light-hearted but impressively researched book ranges across history, world cultures, literature, art, medicine and myth to examine man's relation to his characteristic member. It investigates the reasons why this unruly appendage all too often appears to have a mind of its own - and the joint relationship of man and his madman to the opposite sex. Off-mint.