The Big Book of Useless Knowledge

250 of the Coolest, Weirdest, and Most Unbelievable Facts You Won’t Be Taught in School

By: Neon Squid

Narrated by: Tim Campbell

The Big Book of Useless Knowledge features sound design and special effects to enhance your listening enjoyment. Immerse yourself in the sounds of city streets and the prehistoric sounds of dinosaurs.

An encyclopedia of mind-bogglingly random facts that will lodge in your brain and refuse to leave.

Heard about the lizard that shoots blood from its eyes? Or the ancient Romans who used pee as mouthwash? Did you know that going on a roller coaster can cure kidney stones?

In this compendium of obscure facts, listeners will be treated to baffling knowledge they would never learn at school. Broken into chapters including geography, space, and history, a team of experts has scoured the world to find the silliest and most pointless facts that it has to offer.

Kids will meet the prehistoric camel with no humps, the tortoises that went to the moon (and came back again), and dancing cave people. They will learn crucial life skills like how to walk on custard and how to unboil an egg by spinning it 5,000 times a minute. And they will read the heartwarming story of a court jester called Roland the Farter—can you guess what his special skill was?

(SPOILER: the information in this book isn’t really useless. It will inspire, shock, and amuse the reader—and maybe spark an interest that will last a lifetime. It just won’t help you with any exams!)

A Macmillan Audio production from Neon Squid.

Critic reviews

"A hefty helping of need-to-know information, from gross nature facts to how tardigrades, tortoises, and toilets function in space. The barrage of artfully selected, must-share revelations that follow will keep even casual browsers riveted." --Kirkus