Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide to the World's Most Consequential Trivia

The bestselling classic has been revised and updated. A colorful guide to the world's most consequential trivia, Visual Miscellaneum by David McCandless is a reference book like no other. It helps us make sense of our world by putting the data we are bombarded with every day—health findings, technological advances, cultural touch points, war statistics—into creative visual perspective. Like Show Me How by Lauren Smith and Schott's Miscellany, only more complete and satisfying, Visual Miscellaneum is a treat for the mind and the eye.

What the Great Ate: A Curious History of Food and Fame

In What the Great Ate, Matthew and Mark Jacob have cooked up a bountiful sampling of the peculiar culinary likes, dislikes, habits, and attitudes of famous—and often notorious—figures throughout history. Here is food:

• As code: Benito Mussolini used the phrase “we’re making spaghetti” to inform his wife if he’d be (illegally) dueling later that day.

• As superstition: Baseball star Wade Boggs credited his on-field success to eating chicken before nearly every game.

• In service to country: President Thomas Jefferson, America’s original foodie, introduced eggplant to the United States and wrote down the nation’s first recipe for ice cream. 

From Emperor Nero to Bette Davis, Babe Ruth to Barack Obama, the bite-size tidbits inWhat the Great Ate will whet your appetite for tantalizing trivia.

Included in True Stories.