What were your other favorite "Straight Dope" type books?

[kaylasdad99]

I don’t know where it is right now, but somewhere I have a copy of Rainbows, Curveballs, and Other Wonders of the Natural World Explained, by Ira Flatow.

Bought the paperback in 1989.

[Dendarii_Dame]

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith

[smithsb]

@JohnT

…

So, the next day, my Dad and I are driving back to Atlanta. He hands me my book and says, in words guaranteed to ensure my complete silence for the next 7 hours of driving, “Good thing she didn’t look under your mattress.”

Had to clean coffee splatter off the screen and keyboard. BUSTED :D:D

Well done.

[JKellyMap]

@JohnT

My story involves my very religious, strict grandmother whom I would visit for 6 weeks every summer. Had a copy of the Book of Lists (paperback) and knowing it would never, ever, EVER pass muster I oh-so-cleverly hid it in my closet whereupon she found it in less than a week.

My grandfather and I were sitting in the patio when she comes out with the book:

“What is this?”
“It’s, uh, a book that one of my friends loaned me?” (Yeah, that’s the ticket!)
(Flipping through the book) “Jimmy, listen to some of these things… ‘top 10 worst places to hitchhike’… ‘10 preserved body parts of famous dead people’… oh!”
“What is it, Shorty?”
“‘6 people famous for their deformities’… John, how can you read this trash?”

At this moment, I am dying. Dying and praying that Grammy flips through 20 or so pages as she HAS been doing and does NOT merely turn the page to see Chapter 7, “Love and Sex”, with the first list being “The 6 Most Popular Positions for Sexual Intercourse.”

She turns the page.

“Oh my God, Jimmy, there’s an entire chapter here on sex…”

Ha! The English teacher I mentioned happened to be an Episcopalian priest.