The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing ExplainerFor any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wro...

An NPR Best Book of 2018"How to Invent Everything is such a cool book. It's essential reading for anyone who needs to duplicate an industrial civilization quickly." --Randall Munroe, xkcd creator and New York Times-bestselling author of What If? The ...

Prepare to learn everything we still don’t know about our strange and mysterious universe.Humanity's understanding of the physical world is full of gaps. Not tiny little gaps you can safely ignore —there are huge yawning voids in our basi...

A gleefully gruesome look at the actual science behind the most outlandish, cartoonish, and impossible deaths you can imagine   What would happen if you took a swim outside a deep-sea submarine wearing only a swimsuit? How long could you last if...

YouTube sensation Matthew Santoro amazes with eye-opening facts that are sure to blow your mind.Matthew Santoro's originality and humor has attracted millions of fans, making him a beloved YouTube star. His weekly videos on amazing and little-known f...

Make no mistake: Our founding fathers were more bandanas-and-muscles than powdered-wigs-and-tea.  As a prisoner of war, Andrew Jackson walked several miles barefoot across state lines while suffering from smallpox and a serious head wound receiv...

John Hodgman-bestselling author, The Daily Show's "Resident Expert", minor television celebrity, and deranged millionaire-brings us the third and final installment in his trilogy of Complete World Knowledge. In 2005, Dutton published Th...

The New York Times bestseller by Famous Minor Television Personality John Hodgman—The Daily Show's "Resident Expert" and the "PC" in the iconic Apple ads—picks up exactly where his first book left off. In fact, "the new volume is in every...

Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British bestseller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in area...

The Science of Superheroes takes a lighthearted but clear-headed look at the real science that underlies some of the greatest superhero comic books of all time, including Spider-Man, Batman, Fantastic Four, and many more. Each chapter presents the st...