Review: Great Trivia Collection for all Audiences
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 20, 2013
Good trivia questions are not easy to come by.  A good trivia question is more than just a question about an esoteric fact: it's a tiny puzzle with clues, an interesting fact, and an answer that can be derived from those clues.  Sumit Dhar's InQUIZitive series offers a great collection of good trivia questions that will be fun for almost audiences and formats.  Most of these questions come from culturally-relevant materials, so they do not require any specialized areas of knowledge (except for the last two chapters on India-specific trivia).Here's an example (this is the same question from another review -- I don't want to give too many good ones away!):Question: The company chose this name in honor of the first mate in Herman Melville's book Moby Dick. The founders felt this name evoked the romance of high seas and the sea faring tradition of early coffee traders. Keeping in line with the theme of the sea, their logo is also connected to a mythical sea creature. Which company?In this question, the reader/contestant gets three clues, and it starts with the most esoteric clue.  Who was Captain Ahab's first mate?  If you don't know that, the next clue might help: what company's aesthetic feature coffee and the high seas?  Finally, the last clue is the easiest for general audiences: what company has a mythical sea creature in its logo?  If you remember that Starbucks has a mermaid on its logo, you'll know the answer almost immediately.  Each of these three clues serves as an extra tidbit of information: Starbucks was named after a character in Moby Dick!  Compare this trivia question to a more standard question: What company was named after a character in Moby Dick?, and you'll see how well developed the trivia in InQUIZitive is.I would recommend Dhar's InQUIZitive series to anyone interested in trivia or anyone looking for a nice, fun collection of trivia questions to use at a local pub or party.  These questions can be used for all manner of play: from the tradition question and answer (i.e., read the question and teams write down the answer) or more quiz-bowl oriented formats (i.e., participants can buzz in at any time, and the goal is to answer the question correctly as quickly as possible).  Great work!