The Book of the Year 2018: Your Definitive Guide to the World’s Weirdest News

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‘My favourite geeks. Hilarious. Sideways. Brilliant.’ Tim Minchin

In a year dominated by Russian collusion and Brexit confusion, The Book of the Year returns with another dose of barely believable yet wholly unimpeachable facts and stories from the past twelve months.

Every week for the past four years, Dan, James, Anna and Andy – the creators of the award-winning, chart-topping comedy podcast No Such Thing As A Fish – have wowed each other and millions of their listeners with the most astonishing trivia they have learned over the previous seven days. Now, once again, they have put down the microphones, picked up their pencils, and transformed a year’s worth of weird and wonderful happenings into one uplifting book that you won’t be able to put down.

Discover how Peruvian mummies affected the World Cup, and why Love Island contestants are experts in game theory – as well as hundreds of stories that may have passed you by entirely, including the news that:

· NASA sent a man with a fear of heights to the International Space Station.
· An ice hotel in Canada caught fire.
· Mark Zuckerberg’s private data was compromised while he was talking to Congress about compromised data.

From Kim Jong Un’s personal potty to Jeremy Corbyn’s valuable vegetables, The Book of the Year 2018 is an eye-opening tour of yet another incredible year you didn’t know you’d lived through.

No Such Thing as a Fish is a team of researchers who work on the BBC TV show QI. Each week they gather together in their Covent Garden office and record a podcast discussing the most interesting facts they’ve discovered over the previous seven days.

In the five years since it launched, the show has been downloaded more than 200 million times, won multiple awards, been transformed into the spin-off topical BBC Two TV series No Such Thing as the News, performed national and international tours (including selling out the Hammersmith Apollo and the Sydney Opera House along the way), and was named one of iTunes’ top 10 most downloaded podcasts of 2016, 2017 and 2018.

The team is made up of James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Dan Schreiber.

James is a script editor on QI, with a dozen series and seven bestselling books under his belt. He has also appeared on TV quiz shows Fifteen to One and Only Connect, reaching the semi-finals in the latter and embarrassingly crashing out of the former.

Andrew is a writer and comedian who also contributes to Private Eye magazine. His first novel, The Last Day, will be published in spring 2020. His nickname among No Such Thing as a Fish fans is ‘Lightning’ (or so he claims).

Anna is a script editor on QI who has previously worked in Scottish politics and Australian advertising, as well as selling fruit wine and hay-baling in the Highlands. She refuses to join Twitter. #GetAnnaOnTwitter

Dan is a comedian and producer who co-created the award-winning BBC Radio 4 series The Museum of Curioisty; has fronted numerous TV shows, including his own Channel 4 documentary; and, as a stand-up, saw his debut show named at the time as one of the top 100 most favourably reviewed shows of the Edinburgh Fringe. He ranked 100th.

No Such Thing as a Fish is a team of researchers who work on the BBC TV show QI. Each week they gather together in their Covent Garden office and record a podcast discussing the most interesting facts they’ve discovered over the previous seven days.

In the five years since it launched, the show has been downloaded more than 200 million times, won multiple awards, been transformed into the spin-off topical BBC Two TV series No Such Thing as the News, performed national and international tours (including selling out the Hammersmith Apollo and the Sydney Opera House along the way), and was named one of iTunes’ top 10 most downloaded podcasts of 2016, 2017 and 2018.

The team is made up of James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Dan Schreiber.

James is a script editor on QI, with a dozen series and seven bestselling books under his belt. He has also appeared on TV quiz shows Fifteen to One and Only Connect, reaching the semi-finals in the latter and embarrassingly crashing out of the former.

Andrew is a writer and comedian who also contributes to Private Eye magazine. His first novel, The Last Day, will be published in spring 2020. His nickname among No Such Thing as a Fish fans is ‘Lightning’ (or so he claims).

Anna is a script editor on QI who has previously worked in Scottish politics and Australian advertising, as well as selling fruit wine and hay-baling in the Highlands. She refuses to join Twitter. #GetAnnaOnTwitter

Dan is a comedian and producer who co-created the award-winning BBC Radio 4 series The Museum of Curiosity; has fronted numerous TV shows, including his own Channel 4 documentary; and, as a stand-up, saw his debut show named at the time as one of the top 100 most favourably reviewed shows of the Edinburgh Fringe. He ranked 100th.