The A to Z of almost Everything: A Compendium of General Knowledge (A to Z series)

This book is aimed at a certain type of person, mainly those who love quizzing and love facts. I, through a strange turn of events, have found myself needing to set questions as part of my work, so have surrounded myself with reference books, and this is pretty much the best one out there; I once heard Paul Sinhar of "The Chase" fame call it "the quizzers Bible"! So, what actually is it? It's lists - lists of books and their authors, lists of every UK number 1 until the publish date, lists or Dicken's characters, lists of fashion designers, Prime Ministers, Presidents, MPs, Films, Oscar winners, FA Cup winners, Olympic gold medalists, record holders; you name it, it's got a list for it. In that sense, it definitely takes some effort to write good questions using this book, because you need to flesh out the facts, however, the sheer amount of information makes it invaluable, and if you set yourself the task of memorising just a small proportion of these lists, you'll be the first one on call as a "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" phone a friend. I also own the Seventh Edition of this book, so it's worth noting what has changed in the Eighth Edition; mainly, it's simply updated information. Since the last edition the unnamed elements have be named (for example ununoctium is now known as oganesson), some countries have moved their capitals, new singles have reached number one and new events have occurred, but I have noticed new books have been added to the books and authors index, so I'm sure this will have occurred throughout the book. Obviously, as a book, the information is only accurate up to the publish date; Paula Radcliff's marathon world record - which stood for 16 years - was broken by Brigid Kosgei just a few days before I bought this book, but that's the nature of facts - they change all the time. All in all, this is the best UK reference book out there, and if you're happy to while away the hours learning lists of stuff, you definitely won't be disappointed!

This book (and the 10,000 Things You Need to Know) are often referenced as the must haves for quizzers. This book combines well the finite things that can be listed, measured or ranked with things that can’t. For example it has longest rivers of the world (measure and rank) and capital cities (list). But it also has topics of interest that are more arbitrary. For example Famous Last Words. The content (of this edition) is up to 2019 so pretty up to date. The content is global but with a strong UK bias in some categories. For example in Sport and TV. Ok, in this day and age then all of the content will exist on the Internet. But there is still an appeal in having this brought together into a single source (and as a conventional book). But a real book is less searchable and really how easy it is to find what you need is key. There are over 1200 pages or tiny print so unless you are a pro quizzer then I can’t see it being a bedtime read

I used to write pub quizzes at University and always used a much older edition of this book to help create categories, questions and answers. Its a boon that's stuck in my memory since then despite losing the older version in a move somewhere. When lockdown began and we got really back into quizzing I bought a copy of this. It was just as I remembered and weve now written hundreds of quizzes from scratch. Its a source I trust. The level of detail and the breadth of subject matter is astounding. I've learned so much from just flicking through. Its extremely long and should come with an eye sight warning as the text is very small. But I think that is to be expected given the amount of content. Great reference to have on the shelf.

Very good, but a few sections which appeared jn edition 5 are missing. ( just a few )

we have bought this book almost each publication, It covers everything we need to know, and is always up to date

This is a wonderful encycopeadia, full of amazing facts. I had an earlier version and loved that, but this is just so much better being more up to date. I use this before using my Encycopedia Brittanica.

My husband loved this book but found the print a bit small. I bought another one and it came today with a small tear in the dust cover. It is a Christmas present for a friend so what shall I do ?

I heard about this whilst watching 'The Chase' - the Sinnerman said that it's THE book that all quizzers use. It's incredible - full of everything you want to know (and plenty you don't). Kept me entertained all last Christmas.

Good read for people with plenty of time and people who are into quiz show