Now You Know Everything—Almost: The Book of Answers, Vol. 3

Virginia Gillham is university librarian and archivist at Wilfrid
Laurier University library. She is also a judge of national and
international figure skating competitions.

Now You Know Everything—Almost is the third in a series of bestselling
collections of factoids explaining the origins of commonplace
expressions in the English language and long-standing customs of the
Western world. The book is divided into 22 sections. Sections 1–21 are
subject categories, each of which includes snippets of little-known
information such as “why is a cup of coffee often called a cup of
‘joe’ ”? The final section consists of questions about the
contents of the book.

There are nuggets of information here that live up to the standard
established by the two previous volumes, but they are the exception
rather than the rule. Much of the information in this volume is
transparent conjecture, while some of it is inaccurate or patently
obvious. Many of the answers that follow the questions are illogical or
non sequiturs. The book is worth acquiring, however, to complete
collections that include the other two.