QI: Advanced Banter

John Lloyd and John Mitchinson

Faber 2008

Allen and Unwin 2008 (Australia)

I think people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.

Nancy Reagan

You know "that look" women get when they want sex? Me neither.

Steve Martin

The Beatles are dying in the wrong order.

Victor Lewis Smith

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb ... and I'm also not blonde. Dolly Parton

Have you ever wondered why most books of quotations are stuffed full of rather pedestrian quotes by people you've never heard of? Here's the book you really need. The thoughtful gentlemen of QI have delivered this elusive holy grail: the big, useful, funny and really very good book of quotations.

Organized into 400 subjects from ambition to worry (or from artichokes to windows) this book offers you a useful (if not biting and perhaps a little nasty) take on almost every situation life throws at you, from the death of your cat to the end of the world as we know it. It's a sourcebook of one-liners, of knock-out jokes, of droll asides and heartfelt statements of truth and beauty, a practical handbook of wit and intelligence.

As well as the quotes themselves, there is a prologue from the fuehrer of banter himself, Stephen Fry, and lots of quite fascinating background information on the people quoted (and-misquoted). Six years of learning how to avoid the dull stuff have left the QI team in a uniquely good position to deliver a knock out book.