George Washington was really the ninth President of the United States. We developed a plan to bomb Japan during World War II with explosive-laden bats. A chicken managed to live for eighteen months after having its head cut off. Einstein helped invent the refrigerator. The United States was once ruled by Emperor Norton the First. A man survived for one hundred and thirty-three days afloat on a life raft. Violet Jessup survived not one, but three disasters at sea, including the Titanic. The Citibank Tower in New York nearly collapsed, an event which could have devastated the city.

All these, and many more, are the bizarre and fascinating stories brought to light by Steve Silverman, a high school teacher who originally began collecting these useful, useless facts and events in order to entertain his students, and who later parlayed this into the popular “Useless Facts” website. For the first time, he collects some of the most outrageous, unbelievable, and downright head-shaking stories, and has put them into book form. Thrill to the amazing Molasses Flood of 1919! Gasp as Niagra Falls runs dry! Boggle at the sheer accomplishment of writing a 50,000 word novel… without using the letter “E” once! Amaze your friends with the story of Japan’s deadly paper balloons, history’s first successful intercontinental bombing mission! Blink in bewilderment at the sheer lengths to which some people will go to avoid the world, or collect on a life insurance policy! And say “That’s just not right!” when confronted with Joseph Pujol, the world’s best… farter. To say nothing of shooting chickens at airplanes, flying in a lawn chair, eating Vaseline, inventing the zipper…

I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for useless information like this. Stories so weird they have to be real. People so eccentric you appreciate your own relatively sane family all the more. Plans so mindbogglingly twisted that you -almost- wish you’d though of it first. With the very first story, of Mike the Headless Chicken, I was hooked. Before long, I was reading tidbits from the book to my wife and friends as we wandered the mall, until they hit me to make me shut up. But I couldn’t help it. Learning about the first eight Presidents of the United States, each elected for a year under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 and 1789, all but knocked me over, while reading about Michael Malloy, who seemed virtually unkillable, just intrigued me. All in all, this book probably gave me better entertainment and trivial knowledge for my money than any book in quite a while.

Each of the various stories is presented in an intelligent, conversational tone, with Silverman’s dry wit and ironic grasp of the situation coming through in living color. An extensive appendix containing Web links and additional resources allows the interested reader to go searching for more information on his own. All in all, this book is highly recommended. While it won’t make you an expert on any one topic, it’s sure to provide you with plenty of anecdotes for the next time conversation runs dry. Next time you’re on a date, and running low on topics, just turn to your companion and say, conversationally, “The man who invented Vaseline ate a spoonful every morning for good health, but I know some better uses…”

Maybe not. One thing’s for certain, this book is a great read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But as Steve Silverman says at the end of each story, “Useless? Useful? I’ll leave that for you to decide.”