The Idler 29: Hell Issue

by Tom Hodgkinson, Gavin Pretor-Pinney

As Dorothy Parker once sagely noted, curiosity is the cure for boredom, but there is no cure for curiosity. It is endless and free, unlike television, wine, or the water in our taps. It is more pleasurable and reliable than sex. It's what makes us human. Spend time with the curious minds of Stephen Fry, Philip Pullman, science writer Steve Jones, and more. Guest editors for this issue of Idler are John Lloyd, founder of QI and the producer of Blackadder and Spitting Image, and John Mitchinson, coauthor with Lloyd of The Book General of Ignorance. They have filled every inch with absurd and curious facts and ideas.

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 22, 2001

About the author

Tom Hodgkinson (b. 1968) is a British writer and the editor of The Idler, which he established in 1993 with his friend Gavin Pretor-Pinney. He was educated at Westminster School. He has contributed articles to The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian and The Sunday Times as well as being the author of The Idler spin-off How To Be Idle (2005), How To Be Free (released in the U.S. under the title The Freedom Manifesto) and The Idle Parent.

In 2006 Hodgkinson created National Unawareness Day, to be celebrated on 1 November.