Review: Entertaining Trivia Quiz Book
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 24, 2014
Sumit Dhar's Trivia Quiz is a highly entertaining collection of interesting trivia questions on a variety of subjects. Instead of merely presenting lists of short questions and answers (such as What is the capital of France?), he usually spends a lengthy paragraph setting out each individual question, providing a series of clues along the way (one question in the first quiz is to identify someone who was (a) named after the author of a West Indian bird guide book, (b) whose family motto is "Non Sufficit Orbis," (c) majored in Far Eastern Studies at Cambridge, (d) was married to Teresa Di Vicenzo, and (e) works for Universal Exports).Obviously, the more clues the author gives, the easier it is to figure out the answer. However, Dhar has another stated purpose: to increase people's knowledge of trivia for the future. You may or may not have been able to guess the person from the five clues listed (I won't spoil it here). But, once you know the answer, you'll probably remember it again if you're ever prompted by any of the clues in the quiz. Many of the questions provide fascinating tidbits of information about famous people and places, and readers will take their time digesting each question instead of merely trying to rush through the quizzes.The book contains 41 quizzes of five questions each. Also, two of the quizzes have questions specific to India, and those unfamiliar with Indian culture will probably have a difficult time with those questions. The book combines two separate earlier quiz books by the same author at a lower price than buying the two individual volumes separately, so it does offer greater value. However, the author does repeat a couple of questions from the first volume in the second volume (i.e., the second half of the book). Further, the book's structure repeats each question in the answer section, which I felt was a bit annoying.Overall, this is one of the more entertaining trivia quiz books around with genuinely interesting and challenging questions. Because the combined volume is a better value that the two earlier volumes, I would heartily recommend it.