Al Capone Was a Golfer

Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo are the Queen and King of trivia, relied upon by game shows including Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and game manufacturers. Millions of people read their daily newspaper column and together they've written twenty books. The sixth book in the 'Totally Riveting Utterly Entertaining (TRUE) Trivia Series' puts a magnifying lens on the wacky world of writers. It Takes a Certain Type to Be a Writer will tell you everything you could possibly want, or were afraid, to know about writers, publishing, and the writing life. Bitesized facts are organized into chapters including "Everyone's a Critic," "Stranger than Fiction," "From Bad to Verse," "Kiddie Lit," "A Word's Worth," and many more. You'll learn things like: where Proust wrote (in bed with gloves on)/ what Voltaire drank (70 cups of coffee a day)/ and how James Cain prepared himself for yet another publisher's rejection. (The title The Postman Always Rings Twice had nothing to do with the plot of the bestselling novel. It was a private joke of author James Cain. His postman would ring his doorbell twice whenever the many-times-rejected manuscript came back from a publisher.)

From devastating remarks made by teachers ("Addled, backward dunce" said about young Thomas Edison) to the rich and famous on campus (William Randolph Hearst kept a pet alligator at Harvard), this is a spirited and humorous collection of facts about teachers and students.

We are all fascinated by the legal system and the people behind it. With Dracula Was a Lawyer, trivia experts Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo explore lawyers we love to hate (until we need one ), the pitfalls in our legal system, celebrity lawyers, and more. This compendium puts lawyers and legal history on trial and exposes over 500 outrageous oddities from the wild world of law.

It's no joke that we are all fascinated by the medical profession and the people in it. With Doctors Killed George Washington, trivia mavens Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo explore accidental medical discoveries, medical follies, bizarre cures, and more. This titillating tome puts doctors and medical history under the microscope and exposes more than 500 little-known facts and outrageous oddities from the wild world of medicine. Did you know? Before the advent of surgery, ancient Egyptian doctors put their patients under by hitting them on the head with a mallet.

All the Buzz for Beekeeping Beginners

“The book oozes with bee facts and trivia….Bees do make good pets and this book is a gentle introduction to the world of backyard bee keeping.” —Patsy Bell Hobson, writer and master gardener emeritus

#1 New Release in Entomology and Insects & Spiders

What happens when a writer sets up a backyard beehive? You get a beekeeping book full of fun and fascinating facts about honey bees and our other favorite pollinators.

A nature guide book for beekeeping beginners. Full of trivia, tips, legends, and lore—this quirky bee book swarms with interesting information, so you can have fun, learn stuff, grow your farm, or just relax. Writer and beekeeper Jack Mingo lives with half a million bees, and has picked up a thing or two at his bee farm. In this collection of humorous and often unusual observations, Mingo shows us a glimpse of the mystical and matriarchal world of bees.

The save the bees sign you’ve been looking for. How many legs do bees have? Enough not to crowd your bed at night. They don't track mud or bugs into your house, and they won’t bark and whine. They even greet you with raw honey and beeswax. And these are just some of the reasons bees make the best pets of all. Whether you’re a beekeeping beginner, looking to save the bees, or interested in fun nature facts about bugs and insects, there’s something here for every nature lover.

Step into Mingo’s hive for tidbits like:

• Fun and interesting tips and tricks for beekeeping beginners
• Knowledge about the color, quality, and benefits of local honey
• The history and legendary stories of bees, like the role they played in the Civil War and the Legend of the Caroling Bees

If you liked Beekeeping for Dummies, The Beekeeper’s Handbook, or Beekeeping for Beginners, you’ll love Bees Make the Best Pets.

This latest romp through history, politics, religion, and science from the dyno-duo Barrett and Mingo is sure to tickle the fancy of trivia buffs everywhere. Amuse your date, impress your boss, bore your kids, or be the 6th caller to win a pair of tickets to the nose-flute band concert All because you know that a Twinkie in the microwave will explode in 45 seconds, that you have a 1 in 3,448,276 chance of dying from a snake bite, that 342 cases of tea were tossed into the "hahbah" during the Boston Tea Party or that white rhinoceroses are not actually white but grey (you'll have to read the book to discover why). Barrett and Mingo, partners in life and crime (er, writing) can do a thing or two with random facts, and this book ranks right up there. From the time the Wallace family made famous books of lists of one kind or another, readers have found fascination--or maybe just food for their obsessions--in books like Random Kinds of Factness.