This is the kind of book that you just want to read aloud to those around you. Or maybe that's just me! Either way, we had fun with the "strange" facts!

A fun read full of the weird, unusual and unknown.I enjoyed reading this and learning new things about these people through out history. There will be a lot of "Did you know.." conversations in my future.

STRANGE HISTORY by Bathroom Readers Institute

What can I say, I loved it. I didn’t read it in the bathroom but it didn’t make a difference, so you don’t have to change your reading habits. Yeah, just another reason the read this book.
Now to be serious, this is actually a really fun and believe it or not, an extremely interesting read. It is full of facts you never knew (or never wanted to) and has quotes from interesting and quirky people. Many don’t seem to know what they are talking about, but they are mostly political types so that’s normal.
Honestly, if you haven’t read this book buy it, borrow it or steal it (just joking on that one, honestly) but you gotta read it, ENJOY!!

As the cover suggests, very strange… and entertaining!

I love the BRI books. For a particular theme, they find entertaining, knowledgeable, funny tidbits to share. This is the first in the Strange series that I’ve read and it was exactly as expected and hoped for. The oddest of things – from the earliest days of recorded civilization to the present, no strange stone was unturned to provide an enlightening and fun read. Packaged in bite-sized morsels, the perfect read for a lazy afternoon or just a few minutes of de-stressing.

I did not have a chance to read this book, but it is effecting my feedback rating. I am giving books 5 stars that I haven't read to improve my feedback rating. I am not recommending the book for my classroom or students since I have not read the book. There needs to be a better system of leaving feedback for books not read.

This was a very interesting read, I would agree 100% that’s it’s a bathroom read! I found some odd and definitely interesting things about our history!

Strange History is a fascinating book. I learned all sorts of facts and unusual information. Many of them were interesting to others when making small talk at events, work, etc. The book flowed well and was written in a manner that readers can put it down and pick it back up again without having get back 'up to speed' each time. In other words this is the sort of book that you can be interrupted while reading.

Fun (and odd) facts from history. Great book! Loved it! This is the type of thing you read a few pages at a time and when you finish you go back and start all over again... Then repeat.

Sometimes irreverent, always informative. In some ways reminiscent of the HBO comedy documentary Assume the Position with Robert Wuhl. Recommended to trivia lovers of all types.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Strange History by Bathroom Readers' Institute is everything the title (and authors) imply. At times interesting, macabre, funny and strange; it is the perfect "bathroom read."

Reviewed 2/6/17

I ended up picking up a published copy of this book because I didn't get a chance to review it in time. I really enjoyed it. I've recently developed an appreciation for history that I never had when I was in school, and this was a really fun one. I love that the bitesize stories are easy to read and entertaining at the same time.

This is like a weird kind of history book. There was a thing about farting and Homer Simpson is brought up. But then it mentions a priest who boils and bakes babies and then eats them a big YULK and nasty. There is also a story about aliens and then a story about speaking Hobo. There is also a story about where forty thousand people show up at Crash. Texas too watch two trains collide. Then a story about King Henry had mint workers castrated if they made bad coins. Then a Ghost Bus in Hadbroke Grove in England. Then Bigfoot and Frankenstein are talked about. There are antidotes that follow after the historical events. These going over many hundreds of ere are also ads and quizzes. Also Historic figures mistelling history. These are from around the world and going over many hundreds of years.
If you enjoy random facts and then you will enjoy this book. It is a quick and easy to read with stories running from half a page up to a couple of pages at the longest. But I am not so sure I believed all the “ facts” told here as well as stories. But this still deserved a strong three for entertainment.

Strange History is perfect for your bathroom reading. It is entertaining, is full of trivia, and anecdotes. It also has myths and more. You will laugh at certain things told. The writings are short from a paragraph to a page, occasionally two pages. It reminds me of "Guinness Book of World Facts." If you want tirivia to start conversations or laughing in the bathroom, this is the book for you!

Strange History is a strange book. It finds odd stories and presents them oddly. Not a terrible to spend a little mindless reading time, but no great literature here. Of course, it doesn't present itself as great literature.

I am fairly convinced that I now know where the writers on “Jeopardy” get some of their questions. I was flipping through the pages of this book during a commercial break while watching the game show and there it was! – The exact trivia tidbit that had just been a question on the show. Their secret is out now.

STRANGE HISTORY by The Bathroom Readers Institute

The folks at the Readers Institute have taken some of the most interesting historical facts and strange stories from their numerous previous books and compiled them in this book that is perfect for history trivia buffs. According to the blurb on the book there are also about 50 pages of previously unpublished stories.

Whether you have read the some of the stories before or all of them are brand new to you this book is a fun read. Do you want to know if Marco Polo really saw Unicorns, the story behind the curse on Shakespeare’s Macbeth or who really discovered the Rosetta Stone? This is the book that will give you all that and so much more.

I didn’t realize there was a Reader dedicated to Canadian facts and trivia nor one featuring scary stories … they are definitely going to be added to my TBR.

I'd like to thank Printers Row Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy of this book at no charge

I love trivia. My head is full of useless knowledge but I'm always looking to add a little more. In that vein, I love this sort of book (you might not want to play trivia games against me).

This book is appealing because of the vast amount of trivia packed into it. Most stories are only a page long, none that I recall are more than two pages long, thus making this trivial in just about all meanings of the word.

It can be a quick, easy read, and it's the sort of book that is perfect for reading in a bathroom (hence the author/publisher).

There were a number of pages I bookmarked, finding the tidbit so fascinating (for instance: when 40,000 people showed up in Crush, Texas to watch two trains collide in 1896; or why we say "In a nutshell").

But as much as I love this sort of trivial nostalgia, I can't help but wonder what sort of research or authenticity goes in to these books. On a page titled "Three Random Origins" is a paragraph for 'strawberry lemonade'. First ... is this supposed to be the origin for 'strawberry' lemonade or for 'pink' lemonade? Now... I've told this story to my own kids. I first read it back in the 1970's in a <em>Ripley's Believe It or Not</em> book. I'd researched it back then and the publishers of Ripley publicly noted that they never claimed everything was true ... only that you could 'believe it or not.' More recently, Smithsonian.com published an article on the history of pink lemonade. The Pete Conklin story that <em>Strange History</em> reports is mentioned, but the article, according to Smithsonian (whom I probably trust a little more for their research than The Bathroom Reader's Institute) refers to the story of one of two that is <em>most plausible</em> for the drinks' origin. It's a fun, if slightly disgusting, origin, which makes it fun to tell (and which is why I have retold it), but it's not the 100% guaranteed origin. This book gets around the 'truth' with this little caveat in the introduction: "The editors at Portable Press have collected thousands of bizarre facts and mind-blowing stories..." They have clearly separated fact from 'fiction' (stories).

Bear this all in mind ... not everything you read is fact, even if it works to promote itself as such ... and then sit back and enjoy this trivia.

Looking for a good book? <em>Strange History</em> is a tremendously fun collection of trivia of a historical nature. It will entertain you either sitting in an easy chair in the living-room, or on the porcelain throne in your more private room.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I have always loved books like this, with short interesting historical stories. This is no exception. Fun read, but not what I would consider a book for a circulation library, more of a personal library kind of book.

I did not download this book and therefore cannot provide a review.