Better Than Balderdash

Really fun read, I always enjoy fact books like this as a quick way to learn things that are good for starting a conversation. Had a lot of info I wasn't aware of beforehand.

I thought that this book was fun and informative!

There were plenty of facts in the book that I wasn’t aware of too, which is great as there are a lot of books out that are a little similar to this one so it was perfect to read!

Make sure that you carry on reading past the “end” as there are a few extra facts at the end – a great conversation starter

It is 5 stars from me for this one – very highly recommended!

The only bad thing I have to say about this book is that it was not long enough. Brightly written, with some utterly unbelievable but true facts, this book is sure to grab and hold any trivia lover of today. I must say that after reading this my head is once again filled with even more trivial and useless information! I love it!
Thank you to Net Galley and to the publisher for the free ARC, I am leaving my honest review in return.

I really enjoy reading. These type of fact books and was surprised to find so many new facts inside this one, a great book to get the family talking and sharing their favourite gem.

Do you want a kind of short and funny book to gift someone that usually don’t like to read? Well this is it, and even if the person you want to gift it, do like to read its great, each topic have lots of stories and facts that will amuse and wonder anyone.

In here you have a small short sentence like for instance, “the longer visible rainbow lasted almost nine hours.” and then you have an explanation of where and when.

This are some of the ones I did like the best, did you know that a special country considered using bats to help them win WWII? Did you know that Nikola Tesla fell in love with a pigeon? Or why the first drive-through restaurant was really installed? Do you know witch country has a car vending machine? By the way do you know what gender is an android? Do you know that there is a farm animal that can be more dangerous than a shark? Just read it you’ll learn this book and you will learn the how and why and in some when, for all of these questions.

I Really recommend this fact book, it’s really great fun and kind of a break from all other genres, you can read one fact a day or do it like me and just read it from start to finish with lots of giggles in the middle.

Thank you NetGalley and BooksGoSocial, for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

I love trivia/fact books, and this one definitely did not disappoint. I appreciated the explanations after each one-line fact. This is a fun, quick, light yet informative read.

Fantastically entertaining.
Lots of bite sized random facts to enjoy here. The vast majority of them are things I did not know with only a few that I did which was enough to satisfy my smug self and keep my quest for knowledge brain thoroughly happy. I feel I have learned quite a few things that have been on the cusp of confusing me for a number of years and I feel confident that I can retain some of these to amaze my friends and make me look vaguely intelligent *coughs*
I found the format of the facts slightly confusing as there were no visible spacing between them and no common thread or categorisation. In hindsight, however, I quite like that they aren’t in set categories as this kept my interest piqued and even if one fact wasn’t really for me, the subject quickly changed and moved on. The formatting may also be due to my reading an ARC copy and as yet not complete.
I’m not entirely sure the generic and stylised pictures added to the mix for me, I would’ve preferred some actual pictures but this isn’t a game changer. I might go and have to Google one of the flags mentioned though, to fully appreciate anecdote. I feel like you’re making me do homework there to check I was listening….
Overall really enjoyable and easy to dip in and out of and I felt a compulsion to share some of the fun facts with my darling children who also liked them. Thanks very much, recommended.

Great Collection of Modern Trivia
I like trivial nonsense and I love Trivia Night at the bar. This book is filled will wonderful details that you should fill your head with. These are not boring details, these are fun facts. Many of these are from the 18th. 19Th, 20th, and 21st centuries. There is an entire section about technology! There are many fun chapters and most of these factoids were new to me. This would be a great book to accompany you when you must wait for an appointment or travel in the dark. I received this ARC for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.

A brilliant book- I love useless information and these bite sized facts really fed my need for knowledge!

I really love trivia. However, this book exceeded what I thought it would be. New and interesting facts, well presented.

Addictive!😊

This compilation of odd facts, each related in a paragraph or two, just made me want to keep going, reading to see if the next absurdity or obscure historical or scientific fact was even better! But the way it's written and designed, it's a great book to entertain during visits to a waiting room, work breaks or commutes. This book made me a bit nostalgic. It brought to mind the Ripley's Believe It Or Not stuff I devoured in my youth.

It certainly kept me entertained and, little by little, I felt I had also acquired new arcane knowledge. If only I can retain it!

Thanks to the author, BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

I love books about interesting facts and useless information in this book has both it has chapters on science and inventions, pop culture, sports and everything in between. You can tell the difference between someone who is just copy and pasting to make a buck and someone who really loves interesting facts and I think the author of this book is the latter. The copy and pastor will put the most interesting already been seen before fax and tidbits in the one who loves it has knew and interesting things you haven’t read anywhere else in this book is full of those. I have lots of books like this and this is the first book in a long time that one thing after another was new to me they did have a few things I already knew but for the most part it was all new and interesting. If you love useless information then I highly recommend this book it is one of the better ones that I’ve come across. Oh yes and did I mention it’s hilarious as well. I received this book from NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review but all opinions are definitely my own. Please forgive any mistakes as I dictate most of my review.

Princess Fuzzypants here: We got this book in ARC form in return for an honest review and let me tell you, I wish we had it in hardback. This is Momma’s kind of book. When she was younger, her fly paper brain used to store all sorts of useless information that made her a terror at Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit. Her fly paper has lost some of its glue as she has aged but she still loves to learn new stuff and this book is jam=packed with it. She kept reading excerpts to the other humans in the house. She was so chuffed with the contents.

She did read it through in one go but this is the kind of book that belongs in a “library”- either kind will do. It is a book that will be well thumbed and read over and over again. It was a hoot. With gift giving coming up, this would be a great gift for the trivia fan. We give it five purrs and two paws up.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I learned a lot of interesting facts that I was not aware of before. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Better Than Balderdash by Owen Janssen is a collection of interesting facts and trivia for all ages. For instance: Did you know that you can heat up a cup of coffee by yelling at it? How about the fact that bananas are radioactive? Or that Google hires goats as gardeners? Or that competitive slapping is a sport in Russia? Our world is chock-full of fascinating facts, unbelievable but true stories, and mind-blowing trivia. This book is your one-stop guide to all the extraordinary, shocking and enthralling information you didn’t know you needed to learn. Impress your friends and family with a vast knowledge of topics guaranteed to stimulate interesting conversations! If you want to learn some of the world’s most intriguing stories to pass the time at work, fuel the fire on your next trivia games night, or are looking for top-notch entertainment for that family road trip, then you need this book.

Better Than Balderdash is a fun and entertaining read that easily kept me entertained. I love random trivia, from Jeopardy to the bathroom readers that the author mentions in the opening in this book. I squirrel away bits of strange but interesting information because you never know when they will come in handy. That being said, I new several of the stranger facts shared in this book (like the bat bombs) because of the weird history and science shows that I have running in my house all the time. But, I did learn some new things. My whole family loves this kind of this, and I am thinking that this book will make a great addition to my son's book collection.

A fun read, great for trivia enthusiasts. Many of the facts in the book were new to my family, and we regularly read up on weird trivia. Author seemed genuinely excited by the book, and I think he achieved his goal of providing the reader with new trivia facts.

Ideal gift for the trivia lover in your world.


I received a copy from Net Galley and have written an objective review.

LOVE this book!! I am SO much more interesting as a result of reading this.

The facts are short enough to hold attention and generally outrageous enough to do the same!

Personally I use this book to entertain my family at dinner time but you do you....however you digest it I guarantee you won't regret this purchase!

My thanks to NetGalley, author and publisher for the opportunity to review this book exchange for an advance copy.

I downloaded this book for a bit of light relief, and it did not disappoint, I can't wait to attend my next quiz night after all of the intriguing nuggets I gleaned from this book.

I thank NetGalley, BooksGoSocial, and the author for providing me with an ARC copy of this book, which I freely chose to review.
Although I’m not as big a fan of trivia or a collector of weird and wonderful facts as the author, I do enjoy the topic. I watch game quiz programmes on TV most days, I used to watch QI when I lived in the UK, and regularly participate in an online quiz, so I could not resist the description of this book. Oh, and the title and the cover are great as well.
This is a fun book, easy to read, and as the author suggests in the introduction (where the talks about his love of all things trivia and how he has found it quite useful throughout his life), it makes for quite a good conversation starter. And if you have to make any kind of speech, fishing up some interesting facts relevant to the topic would also ensure you have the attention of the audience.
The copy I accessed contains, apart from the introduction, seven chapters, a conclusion, and some information about the author, although there might be extra content in the published book. The seven chapters discuss a variety of topics: world history, inventors and inventions, pop culture, science and nature, technology, famous and infamous people, and animals and insects. And, be forewarned, the conclusion includes some bonus facts, and rightly so, because all readers are bound to be left wanting more.
Personally, I had heard some of them, but not others, and even the ones I was familiar with, I enjoyed being reminded about. They go from the smallest (a bat as small as a bumblebee, for example), to the largest (living being, and no, it’s now what you think); from the sublime (a hornet that can transform solar energy into electricity) to the ridiculous (a Swedish couple’s idea of a name for their child). It is perfect to dip in an out of, check looking for something interesting, or read from cover to cover in a few sittings. It has some small illustrations, although I would have quite liked a few photographs to accompany some of the facts. Of course, this is also a great place to get people interested in doing research into their favourite topics and discovering some new ones.
This is an easy and entertaining book to read, perfect for somebody with little time and always looking for something amusing and informative to wet his or her appetite. I have discovered things I knew nothing about, and I enjoyed the selection. I look forward to more books by the author, and I am convinced he must be a truly popular teacher. There can’t be a moment’s boredom with him at the helm!

I call this my "Bathroom Book". Do others have a book or magazine they keep in there for when they are "detained"? So I read it a little at a time. Actually, it's that kind of book and is more enjoyable that way. It contains trivia, that is awesome and a lot of it almost unbelievable! Mr. Janssen is a master! He could easily go head to head with my hero, Ken Jennings, I think.

I really wish I could mention a few instances, but at the beginning of the book, we are instructed not to quote anything without permission from the publisher. Thank you, NetGalley, for making this available!