Truly Peculiar: Fantastic Facts That Are Stranger Than Fiction

(Paperback, Main)

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Frequently unasked questions include:

Are overweight politicians less trustworthy

What can bosses learn from a hostage negotiator

What happened to the Vegas wedding industry last year

How can Big Macs measure the true size of China's economy

And why do dung beetles' love of human faeces result in scientific bias

The ever-keen minds of The Economist Explains ponder all these and more in this latest encyclopaedic excursion around the globe. From Hollywood to the underground hair trade, discover answers to the unconventional headscratchers you never thought to ask. This is an extraordinary compendium of the peculiarly true.

Reviews

'The Father Christmas of knowledge' - Giles Coren

'Praise for Go Figure:

Books like this make you wary of ever guessing the answer to anything' - Mark Mason

Author Bio

Tom Standage is Deputy Editor of The Economist. He is the author of several books, including Uncommon Knowledge, Seriously Curious, Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years and The Victorian Internet. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Wired.