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  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407007403
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

The Importance of Being Trivial

In Search of the Perfect Fact




An entertaining and trivia-filled account of our obsession with trivia

If you're intrigued by the fact that Jack the Ripper was left-handed, or that Heinz ketchup flows at 0.7 miles per day - and, more importantly, intrigued by why you're intrigued - then this book is required reading. Convinced that our love of trivia must reveal something truly important about us, Mark Mason sets out to discover what that something is. And, in the process, he asks the fundamental questions that keep all trivialists awake at night: Why is it so difficult to forget that Keith Richards was a choirboy at the Queen's coronation when it's so hard to remember what we did last Thursday? Are men more obsessed with trivia than women? Can it be proved that house flies hum in the key of F? Can anything ever really be proved? And the biggest question of them all: is there a perfect fact, and if so what is it?

  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407007403
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

About the author

Mark Mason

Mark Mason's previous non-fiction includes The Importance of Being Trivial, Walk the Lines, The Bluffer's Guide To Football and The Bluffer's Guide To Bond. He is also the author of three novels, and has written for most British national newspapers (though never about anything too heavy), and magazines from The Spectator to Four Four Two. He lives in Suffolk with his partner and son.

Also by Mark Mason

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Praise for The Importance of Being Trivial

Mason's personal odyssey has an irresistibly hapless charm.

Guardian

... a bridge back to proper reading for those who have become unhealthily addicted to the likes of "Steve Wright's Further Factoids".

Sunday Telegraph

I loved this book - this is quality trivia.

Richard and Judy

Every pub should have one.

BBC Radio 3

...a collection of joyously irrelevant titbits of information

Sunday Herald

..trivia is utterly irresistible

Independent

In his amiable book, Mark Mason examines why some people are fascinated by trivia and tries to pinpoint what makes the perfect fact

Observer