The Book of Useless Information is first book in a series that has been published by Noel Botham & The Useless Information Society. This one was another airport purchase for me. I would recommend it for a flight or long layover as every page of this 286 page book contains random facts. Most of the information presented are the types of bits of info that are probably useless enough to never end up in a trivia game, but most of the tidbits are funny or raised my eyebrow when I read them.
What drew me to first browse through this title before buying it was the picture of the squirrel on the front cover. All of the titles in the series, at least that I've seen, have a squirrel on the front. The entire time I spent flipping through its pages, I kept wondering if there were going to be citations anywhere. There weren't footnotes or references at the end. Skeptic that I am, my first impulse was to know the source of all the facts. If there had been citations, I would have given this book five stars for its entertainment value. There was a page before the main body of the text that lists the members of the Useless Information Society, but try as I might, I didn't even see a website reference that I could inquire more about the references used.
Because I have no easy way to validate the information presented, I give the book two stars. Do I regret the purchase? No. Even if some of the information may be inaccurate (I have no clue), the hours spent in the airport flew by as I read. I normally have a difficult time concentrating while I read in airports with the intermittent announcements, foot traffic, and conversation from my husband.
