What Did We Use Before Toilet Paper?: 200 Curious Questions & Intriguing Answers

by Andrew Thompson

Answers to the questions that keep you up at night—from Why is bellybutton lint generally blue? to Why does catnip affect cats?BAFFLING AND BIZARRE.ENTERTAINING AND ENLIGHTENING.This witty and compulsive collection of trivia will captivate and surprise you with its fun and funky revelations. You’ll learn . . . Why New York is called “the Big Apple”How people count cards at casinosWhat keeps the head on a glass of beerWhy you never see baby pigeonsWhy getting married is called tying the knotPraise for Andrew Thompson and his popular trivia books“A very handy book that could honestly, save their life—or just answer all those questions they’re maybe too embarrassed to even google.” —Buzzfeed

Genres: Nonfiction, Trivia, History, Reference, Science, Humor

280 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2010

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is just a bunch of random questions and a few paragraphs that answer them. Well, sort of answer them.

I question the accuracy and validity of a number of answers, which makes me question all of them. The first one that really jumped out at me was about eye color. There are people with two different colored eyes. I knew that. There are also people with different colors within the same eye. I don't think I knew that. I found it interesting, so I went to Google to find some pics, which led me eventually to Wikipedia. Which is where I discovered that the term he used for the latter was really a term used for both. And that another term he used was wrong and Wikipedia even said so. And I believe it, because it was a Latin problem. 'Iridium' sounds right, but that's because it's an element, not anything to do with irises.

When your facts don't even match up with what Wikipedia can manage, you're in trouble.

Also questionable is that he comes down pretty definitively on the side of 'the Loch Ness monster doesn't exist', but concludes the question of the moon landing being faked as 'the real truth may never be known'.

The author is also preoccupied with questions about alcohol and male reproduction. Though, oddly, not the two combined.

Oh, and I really hate his answer to 'Why are men more likely to cheat on their partners than women are?' Short answer: biology tells us to and women tell us not to. And men's brains keep sex and emotion separate and women's brains link the two. That piece concludes: 'If a woman has sex with a man, her sexual desire is usually coupled with emotions of attachment and love, and it's this cerebral interconnectedness that explains why women have difficulty understanding and accepting men's infidelity.'

So I can only conclude: This book might make for interesting bathroom reading, but bring a jar of salt in with you.

If you're looking for actual, factual answers to any of these questions, you'll need to look them up yourself.

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining trivia collection, but I'm sure there are better ones out there. Each answer is about a page long, which is perfect for short attention spans like mine, although the first few sentences usually follow the same formula: "The question of [repeats section title] has been surrounded by much debate, and there are many conflicting theories involved." The repetition can get pretty annoying, and I skipped those parts when reading aloud to my wife.

I was surprised by the amount of adult-oriented questions, as the language almost feels like it's directed toward children, so this is definitely not a family-oriented book. In addition, there is no real organization, but I don't mind that so much; it's actually kind of fun to turn the page without knowing what topic will pop up next.

Some of my favorite questions:
+ Why are moths attracted to lights?
+ When was toilet paper invented and what did we use before then?
+ What is the history of the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
+ How do salmon find their exact birthplace?
+ Why is a dollar called a "buck"?
+ Did Dracula really exist?
+ Why is the Mona Lisa so famous?

[Cynthia]

I think it’s time to officially call this one a DNF. I started it in March and haven’t picked it up in almost a month and a half. It wasn’t what I expected. I thought it would have intriguing facts that I could learn from but it’s more a book of questions and theories than questions and answers. It just didn’t interest me.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once you get past the title, this book was very informative, an easy read, and interesting. I learned several things from it and disagreed with a few.

The nice thing is you could read one question and answer and put it down or ten questions before you stopped reading. Since the questions didn't relate to each other you could stop without losing your train of thought once you went back to the story.

Pick it up if you enjoy trivia, or if you want a quick read of a book you can pick up and put down with ease.

[Chase Parsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent book that answers questions like, "why is the sky blue?", "where did the rock, paper, scissors game come from?" and "how can a fire be made without matches?". Some of the answers are very interesting indeed, and it makes for good, light reading. Some of the questions are R-rated as well, so it is more geared for adults.

I give this one 3/5 stars because:
1) I question some of the conclusions. The author, Andrew Thompson, is a lawyer in real-life (not an expert in what he writes about), and more importantly, he cites no evidence. For example, Thompson claims that whether we landed on the moon or not and whether homosexuality is genetic or not are inconclusive, when, from my research and education, both topics seem overwhelmingly conclusive (we landed on the moon and homosexuality is genetic). In his defense, this book is meant to be a bathroom reader more than a scholarly work.
2) The look of the book is pretty drab. It is one thing after another, in no particular order, and all of the photos are stock photos (no historical photos/documents, etc.).

Overall, a decent book and the reader will learn some fun answers to many of life's intriguing questions.

[Devon · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I asked every student in a high school class to chose one interesting question and answer it in one page, this book is probably what you would get. It is poorly written and full of the kind of BS fluff sentences I would expect from a high schooler who cares nothing for the topic and wants to finish the assignment as quickly as possible.


I really don’t think anything in this book should be trusted. First of all, a decent percentage of the questions do not have “intriguing answers” because they completely lack answers! “We don’t know” is not an answer. If we do not know at this point in time, then that question should not be in a book promising answers. Thank you for wasting my time.

Second, some of these facts are just wrong. Example on page 58– I’m sorry, Andrew Thompson, but apes have opposable thumbs. An ape’s thumb might not be as mobile or be able to manipulate tools as well as a human thumb, but it is still opposable. If this book got that wrong, how can I trust anything else in this book?

[Christopher · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would ask for a refund if it were possible

I can't believe I only made it a handful of chapters into the book before I was completely blown away at the wishy-washy-ness of the author. "the moon landing may never be proven true or false". It's true you numbskull. Skimming other chapters revealed similar "leaps" of faith on his part to where I just had to DNF and skip all the way to the end so I could write this review. If you, like me, read the title and thought "oh this could be fun" and that it might be like one of the xkcd books, let me disabuse you of that notion (and make a "The Critic"reference): It stinks.

Editing to add that my review on Amazon was approved and then subsequently deleted - due to a report by someone - but is fine here. Strange.

[Chris Haak · Rating 2 out of 5]

2016: Definitely some interesting facts. Some of them were presented as just dry facts in a non-interesting way, while others were speculation with less certainty than Snopes.com has. It was ok, not great, but I have a little more knowledge than I did before reading this book.

2020: forgot I already read this forgettable book. I took a star away this time - it’s just not great. Sorry.

[C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok, just didn't cover a lot that I would find interesting.

[Amy M · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I picked this up at Barnes & Noble, I knew it was going to be an interesting read and I was right. It answered so many questions that I've always wanted answered but never thought to ask or find out about. And even answered some that I didn't even want to know the answers to like: What's the G spot and where is it? Does penis size have anything to do with race? Where did the missionary position originate? Does wearing tight underwear really lower a man's sperm count? ("can you say TMI?") Lol. I found myself reacting with "Wow. . . just wow" most of the time.

Seriously, if you're someone who loves learning about new and interesting things or random facts, this is definitely the book for you. It won't disappoint. Read the questions at random or straight through like I did. There's something here for everyone. And even some helpful tips like how to start a fire without matches, how to kill/defend yourself with your bare hands, and how to use the stars to guide you home.

[Tina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was disappointed by page 55 and after skimming a few later entries I stopped reading.

This book is like those Discovery Channel documentaries where at the end they have no conclusion or proof of whatever they were looking into. ("Maybe giant squid exist, but we can't prove it." "Who even knows if the moon landing was faked?" "Do humans and other primates share a common ancestor? We can't prove evolution!" ETC...)

Maybe I have already read much deeper and wider studies on a lot of these 'trivia' topics that I know what the current science says and the history of the topics, but for about half the topics they don't acknowledge any real conclusions one way or another. The wishy-washy content almost made me want to list a dozen sources for each topic here the the reviews, but that would make my life an XKCD strip.

[Chris Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of very interesting facts about just about anything you can think of in a wide array of subjects. Difference between a hare and a rabbit? Why do men get the chills after urinating? How to mirrors work? You will learn plenty to seem intelligent in casual conversations, and I found that this reversed several things I thought I knew, but was misinformed. Do we use 10% of our brains? No, we use all of it. Does water drain counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere? No, it drains the same all over the world. Does hair and fingernails grow after death? No, the skin dehydrates and recedes.

I only wish it has a better title. I was a little embarrassed to walk around with this book-- it's too sophomorically scatalogical (the answer is your hand, corncobs, and leaves).

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.8. Fun, interesting. Some things either have changed since publishing, or are slightly incorrect. The good and bad about this book, is that it was fun, easy and interesting, the bad is That we are constantly learning, changing ideas and idealogy everyday and we can find most of it (updated) on the internet, but then the internet isn't always the most accurate.. So its good qualities are thst it brings us back to the days before internet where our learning was more limited.

[Akgalloway · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can I give less than 1 star? I love fact books like this. This is horrible. The writing is horrible. The setup of the book is random for a fact book (ok, I'll take that problem on me... most people might not care). But most of all there are several ecplanations that are plain wrong or give no answer whatsoever. Was the moon landing faked? "The real truth, however, may never be known." Actual explanation in this book. Do not waste money or time on this book.

[Kurt Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

As other reviewers have said, you cannot rely on the "responses". I use the word "response" because for over 50% of the questions, the "response" is "I don't know." It seems someone took the top 200 questions posed to Google and wrote a small summary for each of them. And even so, as noted by other reviewers, the answers were wrong or biased or incomplete. Like others, I almost stopped reading when they said that humans only "presumably" landed on the moon.

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a neutral book for me. It was neither good nor bad, some of the information inside was a little iffy bit overall it was informative with short answers. Each question was randomly placed and seemed to have no exact order but that gave it some interest in a ‘What’s next? Let’s find out,’ kinda thing.

[Amy Dale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly pretty boring and I think most people will know the answers to a great deal of the 'curious questions' like "Why do our ears pop on planes?" Or "What's the difference between rabbits and hares?" Some questions are just silly like 'Why do we sleep?' I ended up skipping many that were boring or obvious.

[Pachyderm Bookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books may come out about "a dime a dozen" anymore, but with the rise of Internet "fact finding" and "data mining" becoming all the more prevalent media practices, it seems simply a wonder that volumes of trivia in the form of fact-finding or fact-checking don't simply disappear altogether with the continuing passage of time in relation to current continuing cultural and social trends.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this book nearly 20 years after publication shows its age. In the age of "truthieness" and alternative facts this book allows far too much conjecture and credence to conspiracies to be considered worth keeping around.

[Patricia Atkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

lots of interesting facts and questions that are answered I found a few good like was the moon landing real and why onions make your eyes water and other facts worth a read

[Amber Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love trivia books

[Rossy Galaxy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was fun reading lots of cool, unique and interesting facts.

[Olivia Ambrose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting if a bit simplistic. It bugs me that a lot of the "answers" are "*Shrug,* no one really knows."

[Consumer TV · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Amazing facts...

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since this book has no plot or characters to remember, I interrupted reading it for Paula Poundstone's book about happiness.

Finally finished reading. Much of it was interesting, but in the end I really didn't care about most of the explanations. Besides, the answer to the question of how the coronaviruses got their names wasn't even addressed. Neither was who first used the term social distancing. Oh, well, maybe the next edition will have more meaningful answers.

[Bobby Abraham · Rating 3 out of 5]

A time pass read. Explains a lot of stuff based on 'studies done' but none are referenced. Need to verify the authenticity of the answers.

[Mark Donovan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting questions, might be better to go to Wikipedia for more accurate answers.

[Deserthomemaker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the info is interesting enough, HOWEVER, not all of the information is accurate. For that reason I’m giving it 2 stars instead of the 3 I would otherwise have rated it.

[Dr. Richard von Fuchs]

Factd

Interesting and very good for fIlling short peRiods of time, stop and go reading. Here are six more words. From the reader.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many questions with logical and straightforward answers. Some adults questions too. I had a lot of fun reading this. I did skip over some questions that didn't interest me.