The most improbable, fascinating and endlessly entertaining sporting facts and stories, from prehistory to the present day.
James Harkin Reihenfolge der Bücher






- 2024
- 2023
Hop, skip and jump into this wonderfully curious grand tour of the world of sports, brought to you by QI Elves and No Such Thing As a Fish podcast hosts James Harkin and Anna Ptaszynski. From sport's weirdest rules to its most unlikely heroes, each chapter of Everything to Play For is brimming with surprising facts and intriguing stories, including the psychology of soccer chants, comically large cricket bats, pole-vaulting priests and professional pillow-fighting. Even if you've never asked yourself what David Attenborough has to do with yellow tennis balls, why Victorian doctors feared the outbreak of "bicycle face," or what led ancient Egyptian athletes to have their spleens removed, this book will give you the astonishing answers, and plenty more besides.
- 2022
In gritty Glasgow, a police detective confronts criminals--as well as an enemy that lies within . . . In the seedy environs of 1980s Glasgow, Scotland, it takes guts to be a cop. DI Luc Kidston has guts--though he also has a weak spot thanks to his fear of heights. Now he must focus on finding a samurai sword-wielding vigilante--and untangling the case of one of his protégés, who's been arrested for allegedly putting a woman into a coma. Solving both problems will lead Kidston to take some unorthodox steps, including hiring a forensic hypnotist. It will also bring him into conflict with his own colleagues and lead him to fight for his life in a terrifying showdown . . .
- 2022
What if you didn't have to live with your mistakes?Across the world, thousands of people are shocked to receive an email telling them that they once chose to have a traumatic memory removed.
- 2017
The book of the year : the weirder side of 2017
- 354 Seiten
- 13 Lesestunden
In a year when much of the news was believable but fake, comes a book packed with stories that are unbelievable but true. The Book of the Year is a hilarious guide to 2017's most extraordinary events, unearthed by the creators of the award-winning hit comedy podcast No Such Thing As A Fish. Each week, over a million people tune in to find out what bizarre and astonishing facts Dan, James, Anna and Andy have found out over the previous seven days. Now the gang have turned their attention to the news of the past twelve months. You'll discover the curious details behind the main headlines - how Donald Trump slept on the 66th floor of a 58-storey building, what effect Brexit had on Coco Pops, and why China's president can't stand Winnie the Pooh - as well as hundreds of stories you may have missed entirely, like the news that: - Qatar built a refugee camp for camels. - The world's first avocado restaurant ran out of avocados on its first day. - The victim of Britain's first ever shark attack ended up with a cut thumb. From strange inventions to baffling elections, via a surprising amount of sausage news, The Book of the Year is an eye-opening tour of the incredible year you didn't know you'd lived through.
- 2016
The QI team have blown your socks off, made your jaw drop and knocked you sideways. Now they return with 1,234 brand-new mind-blowing facts that will leave you speechless. - Flowers get suntans. - Denmark imports prisoners. - Bees can fly higher than Mount Everest. - The Republic of Ireland first got postcodes in 2015. - Martin Luther King Jr got a C+ in Public Speaking. - No one in the UK dies of 'natural causes'. - Penguins can't taste fish.
- 2015
Welcome to QI: The Book of the Dead, a biographical dictionary with a twist - one where only the most interesting people made it in!QI have got together six dozen of the happiest, saddest, maddest and most successful men and women from history. Celebrate their wisdom, learn from their mistakes and marvel at their bad taste in clothes. Hans Christian Anderson was terrified of naked women, Florence Nightingale spent her last fifty years in bed, Sigmund Freud smoked twenty cigars a day, Catherine de Medici applied a daily face mask made of pigeon dung, Rembrandt van Rijn died penniless and Madame Mao banned cicadas, rustling noises and pianos. Carefully collected and ordered by the QI team into themed chapters with thought-provoking titles such as 'There's Nothing Like a Bad Start in Life', 'Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone'. Each chapter reveals hilarious insights into the true nature of the most interesting people who ever lived, including Isaac Newton, Genghis Khan, Sigmund Freud, Florence Nightingale and Karl Marx. From the bestselling authors of The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 Facts to Knock Your Socks Off, comes a fun and inspirational biographical dictionary, with motivational stories about the famous and the obscure.
- 2015
1,411 QI Facts To Knock You Sideways
- 400 Seiten
- 14 Lesestunden
ALL NEW FACTS FROM THE QI TEAM!Orchids can get jetlag. There are 177,147 ways to tie a tie. The soil in your garden is 2 million years old.1,227 QI Facts blew your socks off. 1,339 QI Facts made your jaw drop.
- 2015
On 19 August 2014, a member of the jihadist rebel group known as ISIS uploaded a video to YouTube. Entitled 'Message to America', the clip depicted the final moments of the life of kidnapped American journalist James Foley - and the gruesome aftermath of his beheading at the hands of a masked executioner. Foley's murder - and the other choreographed killings that would follow - captured the world's attention, and Islamic State's campaign of kidnapping exploded into regional war. Based on three years of on-the-ground reporting from every side of the Syrian conflict, Hunting Season is James Harkin's quest to uncover the truth about how and why Islamic State came to target Western hostages, who was behind it and why almost no one outside a small group of people knew anything about it until it was too late. He reveals how the campaign of kidnapping and the development of Islamic State were joined at the hip from the beginning. The book is an utterly absorbing account of the world's newest and most powerful terror franchise and what it means for modern war.
- 2015
The Third IQ book of general ignorance
- 320 Seiten
- 12 Lesestunden
The Third Book of General Ignorance gathers together 180 questions, both new and previously featured on the BBC TV programme's popular 'General Ignorance' round, and show why, when it comes to general knowledge, none of us knows anything at all. Who invented the sandwich? What was the best thing before sliced bread? Who first ate frogs' legs? Which cat never changes its spots? What did Lady Godiva do? What can you legally do if you come across a Welshman in Chester after sunset?


