Author(s): Mark Mason

Gift/Humour

If you're not remotely interested in the fact that Pete Conrad was the first man to fall over on the moon or that the stretch of road between the Strand and the Savoy is the only public highway in Britain where you are legally obliged to drive on the right, then "The Importance of Being Trivial" is very definitely not for you. If on the other hand you're intrigued by these pearls of information - and more importantly, intrigued by why you're intrigued by them - then Mark Mason's book will be required reading.An exploration of why little facts hold such a big fascination (interviews with the likes of John Sessions), it examines what our love of trivia says about us. Ranging from the history of science to the psychology of knowledge (with contributions from medical experts such as Simon Baron-Cohen), Mason sets out to discover the perfect fact. Along the way he learns how memory works, why Einstein and Picasso had more in common than you'd think, and - in asking why trivia is such a male pursuit - he uncovers fundamental truths about how men and women relate to each other.