I don't even watch Top Gear that religiously but I bought the book for my brother for Christmas. I opened it to write a message in the cover and ended up reading most of it! I laughed out loud on so many occasions, it is SO funny!! As funny if not funnier than the show.
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I love buying these kinds of books for presents - you can read them first before wrapping-up! I bought this along with a Joined-Up Thinking by Colgan (Stephen Fry gave a quote on the front cover) and both books entertained me hugely on these cold, wet, darker days. great stuff.
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I really enjoyed reading this book and found it more than "Quite Interesting". Unfortunately though, if you are an avid fan of the television series like I am it offers nothing new. Most, if not all, of the material is taken from the series.
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This is a little gem of a book; I bought it thinking it would give me helpful ways of knowing and remembering more about grammar - but it's so much more than this.
The whole book is about mnemonics and rhymes as memory aids, grouped into 17 themed categories as listed in the contents page, which is viewable on the 'Search Inside' feature.
This book is ideal for flicking open and dipping into whatever page it lands on as it not only cites fascinating facts/trivia it also provides the means for remembering them!
To give a flavour of the diversity of information in this book, here's a rhyme which caught my attention (I hope the information's accurate!) on what's good to choose for firewood:
This book is split into chapters based on the traditional school subjects, such as geography, history, maths, and then within each chapter split into 'typical things we were taught', ranging from the list of British kings to trigonometry to Charles Dickens.
There are certain chapters you'll skip, either because they were your specialist subject at university or because you're still not interested years later. But there are chapters you'll definitely be saying "I used to know that!" for.
It doesn't take very long to read the entire book, but that's only half the usefulness, because my copy will be taking a prominent place on my shelf- because next time anything that relates to these subjects comes up, I'll remember (I hope) that if I've ... Read More:
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Some game guides (such as the ones for Final Fantasy XII or the fantastic hardback for the Collector's Edition of Fallout 3) are well-designed mines of information that deserve to be almost permanently open by your side when playing the game. You would think from its size that this guide deserves to join that illustrious company. Think again.
Full colour printing may seem like no expense has been spared, but most of the screenshots here are pretty ugly, uninformative, too large (so they are pixellated) or so small that they tell you nothing at all. Visually, the book has very little pleasure to offer.
As far as content goes, the story is even worse. There are some useful tips on dungeons and the quest series for the new class (Death Knight) ... Read More:
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Undoubtedly an unusual book, but this 40+ found it good for occasional dipping into. It goes into all kinds of stuff that might interest boys, and quite a few girls too I reckon. There's bound to be inaccuracies in a book like this, and in that carping vein I would point out that some of the comments on how to play chess were not even wrong. But that doesn't matter at all. Its contribution will be to get its reader interested in a topic, not as a reference in its own right.
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Undoubtedly an unusual book, but this 40+ found it good for occasional dipping into. It goes into all kinds of stuff that might interest boys, and quite a few girls too I reckon. There's bound to be inaccuracies in a book like this, and in that carping vein I would point out that some of the comments on how to play chess were not even wrong. But that doesn't matter at all. Its contribution will be to get its reader interested in a topic, not as a reference in its own right.
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A fantastic little book BUT spoilt by errors in the answer section. "Could try harder - remember to read through answers before submitting paper"
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With a cut-off date of mid-September, the 2009 edition (which is really September 2007 to September 2008) misses the financial market collapse and the election of Barack Obama, for which we will have to wait for the 2010 edition.
Nevertheless, as in previous years the 2009 edition is well worth having for its entertaining mix of current events and trivia. Detail on the growth of fuel poverty and death tolls in Iraq are balanced with reminders of soap-star gossip and lists of useless statistics. Apparently, 45% of eleven year olds say they would rather read a book than watch tv, up from 38% on 2004 - good news for Amazon!