Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
The Mental Floss History of the World - An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits - cover

The Mental Floss History of the World - An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits

Will Pearson, Erik Sass, Steve Wiegand, Mangesh Hattikudor

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

“An admirable job of covering 60,000 years of human history in one volume. . . . fascinating stories, hilarious oddities, and plenty of fun.” —School Library Journal 
 
The Mental Floss History of the World is an amazingly entertaining joyride through sixty millennia of human civilization. As audacious as it is edifying, here is a hilarious and irreverent—yet always historically accurate—overview of the ascent (or descent) of humankind, courtesy of the same rebel geniuses who brought you Mental Floss Presents Condensed Knowledge and Mental Floss Presents Forbidden Knowledge. The Mental Floss History of the World is proof positive that just because something’s true doesn’t mean it’s boring. 
 
“Filled with amusing tidbits and accurate and compelling information.” —Publishers Weekly
Available since: 10/16/2008.
Print length: 431 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Unleashed - cover

    Unleashed

    Amanda Jones

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    “The unbridled joyousness of the dogs in Unleashed is simply heart-expanding . . . A delight through and through.” —Modern Dog Magazine   Dogs are in their natural element when they’re playing outdoors. Pet photographer Amanda Jones captures this unbridled joy perfectly in this collection of photographs. Set against the backdrop of four distinct seasons—each with its own color palette and lush backdrops—these dogs are clearly having their favorite days in their favorite places. This handsome book showcases the energy and character of a diverse group of dogs as they run, jump, and play outdoors all year long.
    Show book
  • The Witch of Exmoor - cover

    The Witch of Exmoor

    Margaret Drabble

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year: “Part social satire, part thriller, and entirely clever” (Elle).   It is a midsummer’s evening in the English countryside, and the three grown Palmer children are coming to the end of an enjoyable meal in the company of their partners and offspring. From this pleasant vantage point they play a dinner-party game: What kind of society would you be willing to accept if you didn’t know your place in it? But the abstract question of justice, like all their family conversations, is eventually brought back to the more pressing problem of their eccentric mother, Frieda, the famous writer, who has abandoned them and her old life, and gone to live alone in Exmoor.   Frieda has always been a powerful and puzzling figure, a monster mother with a mysterious past. What is she plotting against them now? Has some inconvenient form of political correctness led her to favor her enchanting half-Guyanese grandson? What will she do with her money? Is she really writing her memoirs? And why has she disappeared? Has the dark spirit of Exmoor finally driven her mad?  The Witch of Exmoor brilliantly interweaves high comedy and personal tragedy, unraveling the story of a family whose comfortable, rational lives, both public and private, are about to be violently disrupted by a succession of sinister, messy events. “Leisurely and mischievous,” it is a dazzling, wickedly gothic tale of a British matriarch, her three grasping children, and the perils of self-absorption (The New Yorker).   “As meticulous as Jane Austen, as deadly as Evelyn Waugh.” —Los Angeles Times
    Show book
  • Cooking with Fernet Branca - cover

    Cooking with Fernet Branca

    James Hamilton-Paterson

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    “A very funny sendup of Italian-cooking-holiday-romance novels” (Publishers Weekly). 
 
Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany where he whiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions––including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur known as Fernet Branca. But Gerald’s idyll is about to be shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former Soviet republic, as a series of misunderstandings brings this odd couple into ever closer and more disastrous proximity . . . 
 
“Provokes the sort of indecorous involuntary laughter that has more in common with sneezing than chuckling. Imagine a British John Waters crossed with David Sedaris.” —The New York Times
    Show book
  • Why Did I Come into This Room? - A Candid Conversation about Aging - cover

    Why Did I Come into This Room? -...

    Joan Lunden

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    In her most candid and revealing book yet, acclaimed broadcast journalist and Baby Boomer Joan Lunden delves into the various phases of aging that leave many feeling uncomfortable, confused, and on edge. In her hilarious book, Lunden takes the dull and depressing out of aging, replacing it with wit and humor. After all, laughing is better than crying - unless it makes you pee! 
Funny, captivating, and raw, no topic is off limits. Lunden goes where others fear to tread, openly talking about wrinkles and age spots (which Lunden insists are sunspots), expanding waistlines (no, you didn't shrink your jeans), diminished energy (my get-up-and-go got up and went), weak pelvic floors (yes, we're talking about leaking), hot flashes (they suck), disrupted sleep (the morning host is an expert on lack of sleep), changes in sex drive (oh yeah, she goes there), ageism (it exists and it pisses us off), and yes, the real reasons we suddenly find ourselves always searching for those car keys!  
Through her poignant and often laugh-out-loud funny personal experiences, Lunden candidly shares her anxieties and breakthroughs. Why Did I Come into This Room? also explores the science of aging, including how it impacts the body and brain, while dispelling myths and revealing useful options to stave off the aging process as long as possible.
    Show book
  • Chapters from my Autobiography - cover

    Chapters from my Autobiography

    Mark Twain

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) began writing his autobiography long before the 1906 publications of these Chapters from my Autobiography. He originally planned to have his memoirs published only after his death but realized, once he’d passed his 70th year, that a lot of the material might be OK to publish before his departure. These chapters were published in serial form in the North American Review during 1906-1907. While much of the material consists of stories about the people, places and incidents of his long life, there’re also several sections from his daughter, which he calls “Susy’s biography of me”. (Summary by John Greenman)
    Show book
  • Second Chance at the Sugar Shack - cover

    Second Chance at the Sugar Shack

    Candis Terry

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Kate Silver’s back in town, and her dead motherjust won’t leave her alone.Kate usually spends her days dressing Hollywood A-listers, but after her estranged mother dies she finds herself elbow-deep in flour in her parents’ bakery . . . in Deer Lick, Montana. She thought she’d left small-town life far, far behind, but it seems there are a few loose ends.The boy she once loved, Deputy Matt Ryan, is single and sexy and still has a thing for her . . . and handcuffs.Her mother, who won’t follow the white light,is determined to give maternal advice from beyondthe grave.And somehow Kate’s three-day stay has, well . . . extended. She never planned to fill her mother’s pie-baking shoes—she prefers her Choos, thank you very much. But with the help of a certain man in uniform,Kate quickly learns that sometimes second chancesare all the more sweet.
    Show book