I bought this to study for a Jeopardy try out. While it is very heavy on events and people from the last 100-150 years, it does lack in more historical trivia. Definitely a nice book, but not a definitive resource for all around trivia. One thing I was very concerned about was the errors that I found. One listed one of the ships that took settlers to Jamestown as the Sarah Constant, while the vast majority of records call it the Susan Constant. Also, the book claims that the "Wheres the Beef!" slogan was used by Burger King, while it was actually used by Wendys. Granted, thats just two out of the reported 10,000, but those two I found in a quick skimming of the book, and are just ones I know of. So it doesnt exactly instill confidence in the accuracy of the other answers that I dont know.
This is an addictive book- you cannot thumb through it without being amazed at the amount of neat facts! My husband and I (both tried out Jeopardy as teens!) took it iwith us on a car trip and read aloud from it. Where else can you find first lines of famous books, the original 31 flavors and the islands mentioned in Kokomo! I love the little bits of pop culture- I always remember that the Facts of Life girls went to Eastland, but liked being reminded that Holden Caufield was booted from Pencey Prep. This is great for a game show contest or just a trivia afficionado. The information ranges from sports to culture, music politics etc. Read it, but have lots of time because you wont be able to put it down!
This book might be interesting to some Americans, but seriously lacks an international touch. All in all it is very difficult to learn something worthwhile from this book (other than for instance if youre interested in learning the flavours of Basket Robbins ice cream).
