But Brian, what I can't get over is if this is 39th, I mean, where do you keep coming up with all of this trivia and all these great stories? Where do you guys come up with them?

It just comes to us.

I think we're just open to it, and we just get inundated with information in our daily lives and at our desks.

People send us things.

We'll see a book, and that'll be interesting.

I'll have an idea for a story.

I'll just see something on the street.

us?

I'm sort of a TV buff, and I love

TV history.

I'd never heard of J. Fred Muggs, who was a chimpanzee who hosted the Today Show for five years in the 1950s.

Isn't that wild? Today, it's a...

That's crazy.

Today, it's a very respectable news magazine program.

In the early 50s, they couldn't get anybody to watch.

I'm excited to read more about that because I know somebody who lived in one of those.

Tell us about that.

We like to say you can open it up to any random page, and they'll do something interesting there, but if that doesn't float your fancy, just turn a couple of pages and you will.

We've got everything in here.

History, science, word origins, random origins, movies, TV, music, you know, the answers to the big questions like why do cats purr, why is the sky blue, things like that.

Everything has a story, and we want to tell all of them.

And, you know, everybody is into something different, but, like, you'll flip it open and you'll find a story about something you weren't necessarily interested in.

Say you're not a car person, but it's just such a fascinating story about the development of the Mustang that you might... find yourself caught up in that story or you know we have this giant uh wonderful piece on the history of horses and how they are responsible for the modern era it's this epic piece but you know you're not maybe not a horse person but yeah you probably will be after you read this article

What's your favorite part of editing Uncle John's all-knowing bathroom reader?

And tell us more about that.

I was preparing for this interview last night, and I was reading that article, and my cohort who wrote that, I sent him an email saying, this is the most wonderful article you've ever written for the book, and that is such a beautiful line.

And he said, this is the article that I love the most that I've ever written in 20-some-odd years of writing this.

But because it's true, horses are responsible for the modern era of humanity, right? to develop.

They tried to develop horses for 100,000 years, and they finally did it in something like 2600 BC in southern Russia.

Because without the horse, we wouldn't have the spoked wheel.

And then horses could pull wheeled plows instead of the ox-driven heavy plows, which led to a staggering increase in agricultural production.

this.

I mean, his fan base is literally dying.

Oldies radio doesn't play 50s anymore.

I know a lot about TV history.

I can't believe I've never heard this story.

Like you were saying about how these books kind of tell you what you didn't know you didn't know.

My story with J. Fred Muggs um and for five years in the 50s the today show the serious news magazine was hosted by a chimp it's coasted by a chimp so early days of tv they were just throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks nobody was watching the today show but everybody was watching these kids shows that would have like you know a guy dressed up as a pirate with a little animal psychic so president of nbc uh Bud Weaver, Sigourney Weaver's father, made them host, found this trained chimp named J. Fred Muggs and made him host the Today Show.

So David Garraway, serious newsman, would read all these news items and then they'd cut to the chimp in the studio who would just kind of parade around in a cute little outfit or bang on a piano or do a little comedy sketch.

Based on that fact, have you ever had any lifestyle changing facts that you've discovered?

you've got so much new information inside this book and that's what i always love about sharing a conversation with you and diving into this because i mean i mean here's one that i swear i've never seen before the hair metal's greatest hits i mean we all know hair metal a lot of bands today don't want hair metal but they would like to play and have success like hair metal and here you are with it right here in your book

Absolutely.

I mean, everybody who says they didn't like hair metal, like you're lying.

These songs were extremely catchy.

We all loved them.

And shut up.

We loved them.

But what do you go through personally? It's got to be fun.

Mm-hmm.

And it turned into this 10-page feature about the, about why it took 50 years for them to come out with a sequel to the novel version of, of Gone With the Wind.

There's just, you know, if you, you pull a string, you will, you will unravel a sweater, and you will find so much more information out there.

And, and, and, and it is educational.

It's educational for me.

It's, it's educational for the readers because with these books you might, you know, come across something that you didn't even know you wanted to learn about.

You just stumble on something, and then you find out, like, oh, this is actually a, this is actually a really interesting topic that I never, that I never gave much interest to.

Yeah.

So I wonder if you would say more, like, what are some of the pieces of feedback that you and your team have taken on or that maybe have surprised you? Does something come to mind? Yeah.

One of the first jobs I had here, I got hired on not long after college to work in what was essentially the mailroom.

Back then, we were fulfilling orders by hand.

We filled them out of this little train master station in Ashland, Oregon.

And it was my job to stuff envelopes with the books and also answer fan mail.

We got dozens of letters every day from people and from all kinds of people, from mainly children, older people, retired people, and the incarcerated.

The most eloquent letters from all ages, just the most boundlessly curious people.

Do you do the research first and then pitch? Like, how does that work?

Let's talk about what folks are going to find.

You know, we like to have a little something for everybody.

We like to say it's a good gift for dads because Dads are kind of hard to shop for, but dads love trivia and fun facts, and we've got tons of them.

You know, like whenever a dad's like, hey, you want to know something fun? We think they get a lot of those from us, so you're welcome and we're sorry.

One of my favorite ones is we got the fastest touchdown in NFL history.

In a 2003 NFL game, the Philadelphia Eagles started with an onside kick, And Randall Williams of the Cowboys caught it on the 37-yard line midair and then ran it in for a touchdown.

And it took three seconds off the clock.

And it sounds like they were working with Acme Corporation, the people who work with Wile E. Coyote.

Mm.

And it turned into this 10-page feature about the, about why it took 50 years for them to come out with a sequel to the novel version of, of Gone With the Wind.

There's just, you know, if you, you pull a string, you will, you will unravel a sweater, and you will find so much more information out there.

And, and, and it is educational.

It's educational for me.

It's, it's educational for the readers.

Because with these books, you might, you know, come across something that you didn't even know you wanted to learn about.

Yeah.