The Ultimate Bathroom Reader: Interesting Stories, Fun Facts and Just Crazy Weird Stuff to Keep You Entertained on the Throne!

by Bill O'Neill

Who doesn’t love a bit of random trivia now and then? Or, for that matter, who doesn’t enjoy plucking some obscure tidbit of information from the back of their mind and dropping it into conversation? Pick up The Ultimate Bathroom Reader , your ultimate source of interesting facts about a wide range of diverse topics. This book is truly a quick read packed with information from cover to cover. In this amazing trivia book, you will find Collected here are some of the world’s most peculiar, astonishing, weird, and wacky facts and anecdotes, covering everything from sports to space travel, movies to medicine, Sherlock Holmes to Shakespeare, and football to pharaohs. In simple terms, that is what The Ultimate Bathroom Reader is all about. All of these facts plus hundreds more are listed here, in simple, bite-size chunks—with a few pop quizzes thrown in just to keep your brain ticking over! Who knows what you might pick up if you have a couple of minutes to spare? Grab your copy right now and start having fun!

Genres: Trivia, Humor, History, Nonfiction

206 pages, Paperback

Published July 20, 2021

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book of trivia, and fun facts. I enjoyed it, and learned a few things.

[Panama Red]

I like these books, they are very enlightening, and fun to read. With all due respect Mr. Oneil, the Science Pop quiz on page 92, there is a question that is misstated, and so there is two answers. I thought, I would respectfully point it out. I would have done this in private.

On Page 91 of the Ultimate Bathroom Reader. ISBN 978-1-64845-080-8. Number 7, " what was the number of Apollo that first took humans to the moon." The answer is Apollo 8.Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders. Your answer was Apollo 11. Apollo 11 was the first to LAND on the moon. Apollo 8 was the first to GO TO the moon, because they were the first to go around the moon. It seems to me that there are two answers, because of the ambiguity of the phrasing of the question. I just thought you'd like to know. No disrespect or derision or ill wil intended, If I have disrespected you, that was not my intent, and I apologize. I enjoy your books, and look forward to future books. have a nice day sir.

[David Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Ultimate Bathroom Reader: Interesting Stories, Fun Facts and Just Crazy Weird Stuff to Keep You Entertained on the Throne by Bill O’Neill (LAK Publishing 2021) (081.8207) (3903).

My baby boy gifted me with this title for Christmas. I was surprised and tickled with how much interesting trivia the book contained that I (a HUGE trivia buff) had never heard before. Here’s a load of the best trivia from this book:

Afghanistan is the first country listed in alphabetical order. (p. 4).
Maine includes 3100 offshore islands. (p. 5).
At its widest point, the Mississippi River is 11 miles wide (in Minnesota). (p.21).
Of all the major sports, polo requires the largest playing area (300 x 160 yards), which is equivalent to eight American football fields. (p.56).
2520 is the smallest number divisible by all digits from 1- 10. (p. 60).
Manila is the world’s most densely populated capital city - 119,600 people per square mile. (p. 67).
Three-fourths of Earth’s fresh water is locked in Antarctica’s ice, which has an average thickness of one mile and a maximum thickness of three miles. (p. 74).
The lowest Earth temperature ever recorded was -128.6F at Antarctica’s Vostok Station on 7/21/1983. (p. 75).
Antarctica is the only continent not home to spiders. (p. 75).
Crocodile’s stomach acids are caustic enough to dissolve steel. (p. 80).
“In 2010, a plane crashed at Kinshasa Airport in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the aftermath of the disaster, it was found that the crash had been caused by many of the passengers and crew running to the front of the airplane to escape a crocodile which had been smuggled on board in a passenger’s duffel bag. Shortly before landing, the crocodile got loose, and as the people on board fled from it in panic, the sudden transference of weight unbalanced the aircraft, causing it to crash. All but one of the 21 people on board was killed - but incredibly, the crocodile survived.” (p.80-81).
There are 52 playing cards in a standard deck and a total of 52 letters in the words ace, king….two. (p. 88).
Brazil shares a land border with all but two other South American countries (Chile and Ecuador). (p. 102).
Half of the world’s orange juice comes from Brazil (p. 102).
Brazil has the world’s largest Catholic population. (p. 103).
A year on Venus is shorter than a day on Venus - 243 days for a full planetary rotation and 224 days to orbit the Sun. (p. 107).
Saturn’s rings are 50,000 miles wide but only 30 feet thick. (p. 108).
The average Egyptian mummy is wrapped in almost a mile of bandages. (p. 113).
The hardest word to guess in the game of Hangman is “jazz.” (p. 131).
“SWIMS” is a word that reads the same upside down. (p. 133).
How many humans have set foot on the moon? Twelve - two each from Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. (Apollo 13 failed and had to turn around and run for home). (p.140-2).
The band name “Pink Floyd” came from homage to the bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd “Dipper Boy” Council. (p. 146)
Sweden is the nation with the most islands - more than Greece, Philippines, Canada, and Indonesia. Sweden’s territory encompasses 221,000 islands. Stockholm (Sweden’s capital) is spread over 14 islands. (p. 152).
If one visits a different Greek island every day, it would take 16 years to visit them all. (p. 153).
England has one species of venomous snake: the adder, which is one of three native snakes in the UK, along with the grass snake and smooth snake. (p.155-7).
“A single strand of spaghetti (which means ‘little strings’) is properly called a “spaghetto.” (p. 159).
This is a famous Shakespeare quote which is always misquoted. It is printed here as Shakespeare published it in the original: “All that glisters is not gold.” - The Merchant of Venice, Act 2, Scene 7. (p. 161).
The saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus) is the deadliest of the world’s 200 or so venomous snakes. It is believed to be responsible for more human deaths than all other snake species combined and is responsible for 60% to 90% of all snake-bite related deaths, which total 50k to 100K total for all species per year. Its venom is lethal in less than 10 percent of untreated victims, but the snake is aggressive, and it bites early and often. (p. 164).
Kangaroo males are called “boomers,” females are called “flyers,” and kangaroo babies are called “Joeys.” (p. 166).
Only two presidents in American history have not kept a pet in the White House: James Knox Polk and Donald Trump. Trump was the first president since 1849 not to have a White House pet. (p. 171).
Thomas Jefferson kept pet mockingbirds during his presidency. (p. 171)
James Madison’s only White House pet was a parrot named Polly that outlived both James Madison and Dolley Madison. (p. 172).
Andrew Jackson’s pet parrot attended Jackson’s funeral in 1845 but had to be removed from the ceremony because it wouldn’t stop squawking its “robust vocabulary” of curses. (p. 172).
Jame Buchanan kept a pet eagle while he was the president. (p. 172).
Abraham Lincoln kept a pet turkey named Jack while he was president. Jack had been intended for Christmas dinner, but Lincoln pardoned him. (p. 172).
Benjamin Harrison kept two pet alligators (in the White House’s greenhouse) and two pet opossums. (p. 173).
Teddy Roosevelt kept a hyena named Bill, which was a pet from the Emperor of Ethiopia. (p. 173).
Calvin Coolidge kept a goose, a pygmy hippopotamus, and two lion cubs. (p. 174).
There are two landlocked countries in South America: Paraguay and Bolivia. (p. 175).

While the book was well-edited, it contained one howler of an error which was caused either by a failure to fact-check or to edit thoroughly. Here is a great verbatim quote from a section about pasta: “The earliest known lasagna recipe was published in Europe in the 40th century.” (p. 158).

This is a fun book full of my kind of trivia!

My rating: 7.25/10, finished 12/28/23 (3903).

PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

[Elwin Kline · Rating 2 out of 5]

"It was okay / I liked it." - 2.5 star rating, with a round down to a 2.

This was given to me as a gift for Xmas.

Overall mediocre content that at sometimes is interesting and others not so much. The biggest reason why I am giving this 2-stars, is just how dated the content is. A lot of coverage here all the way back to the early 1900's and just other old timey history.

Right now, my headspace is just not in this place. I am certainly down for the 90's, 80's, and even the 70's. But... like going back to 1900-1940's? Not so much. This took a lot of the appeal out the book for me.

I also think about this book from a systematic approach, aka the author churns these out pretty routinely. He has numerous books that follow this exact same template/format, and what's interesting is they don't really have any rhyme or reason to them... it just seems like one big freestyle.

It makes me wonder how financially successful Mr. O'Neill is, off of a super simple business model for his book delivery style that he just rinses and repeat random stuff one could just simple Google... not creating anything new or generating content that is unique or creative in any way.

I am not hating, just to be clear. But, what I am saying is, I don't really care for it and I do not appreciate or will not praise this lack of meaningful content, aka this endless cycle of regurgitation approach.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not say it any better than the author "Collected here are some of the world’s most peculiar, astonishing, weird, and wacky facts and anecdotes, covering everything from sports to space travel, movies to medicine, Sherlock Holmes to Shakespeare, and football to pharaohs." The book has sections of purely factual information, quizzes about a variety of topics, and odd trivia. Quite a fun read for short bits of time.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Mia Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love random bits of trivia and Bill O'Neill’s “The Ultimate Bathroom Reader” is chock full of interesting, funny and weird facts worthy of reading anywhere! A book I plan to send to my brother who did in fact, when we were growing up used to read in the bathroom.

This is a thoroughly entertaining book that can make you laugh, inspire you to want to know mow about a particular thing, and provide good conversational material.

Thanks Mr. O’Neill for this interesting and enlightening book.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a good book to read to learn interesting facts and random tidbits. Fun stories and trivia facts. Adults and trivia buffs will enjoy this book.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Joe Holman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun book to read and, as the title suggests, there are good places to read it. Not totally sure all statistics are accurate but close enough. The quizzes are delightful to do and it's interesting to see which areas I was better at than others.

[David M. Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another hit for trivia lovers

I enjoyed this Ultimate Bathroom Reader every bit as much as I've enjoyed all the ones I've read previously. The quizzes were an added little pleasure that I was surprisingly poor at but appreciated anyway.

[Tom Darrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wouldn't call this the "ultimate" bathroom reader. First, it is short. Second, it is broken down into 2-3 page chapters with a bunch of factoids. Some of the factoids are rather well known, but there is some new/obscure info there. It would be nice if there were more longer stories.

[Katie Badertscher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

Lots of interesting trivia about many different subjects. From Olympic athletes to Shakespeare to astronomy to geography to animals to movies.

[Douglas Reedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun and knowledge in one book!

Truly an entertaining book. Nice bits of trivia and stories able to keep most people happy. A good book for most ages.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a lot of this type of stuff, this is actually better than some I have read.

[Dan Stern · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a person who loves trivia. When I share trivia that no one knows, it makes me feel good. Also when I read trivia and learn something it is worth it.

[alan smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun book to read.

Fun facts great read enjoyed it till the end.
I strongly recommend this book to those that like interesting facts

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun facts!

Got a trivia night coming up? Your best study manual by far 😄. Or better yet, use it to start your own family or friends trivia night!
Pop quizzes nice touch too

[dutch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

When you are on your THRONE , this will help on the days that you ate way too ooo much fiber ,& not. Enough water

[Mattie Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just a silly fill in for a kindle challenge but if you love random facts & something you can read in small bursts as you have the time, this is your book.

[Dmack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read

[Judy Tarver · Rating 4 out of 5]

These types of trivia books are fun to read and always have something for everyone in them. Lots of interesting facts and a great way to learn new things.

[Melvin Marsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny!

It’s not a terribly long book but gives you a lot of crazy facts just the perfect length. I would read a little before going to bed.

[Brit Brit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting

I love trivia. Just a short read to add to my finished pile for 2025. Only 100 more books to go!

[Bob Cantrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trivia is great

I like trivia and these books by Bill O'Neill fit the bill. Now I know that you are going to say read one trivia book and you have read them all. Well that might be true, but it doesn't hurt to read more trivia books because there is always a new hidden gem to discover. So I say give me trivia.