Standage, Tom – The Bell Bookshop

The Economist Quiz Book

Emma — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Calling all quizzers and problem solvers drawn to the smart, the quirky and the counter-intuitive, 'The Economist Quiz Book' is here for you. Across 60 themed quizzes - on topics from TV, film and music to politics, science, natural history and more - three quiz rounds challenge the quizzer to find hidden connections, get their facts straight and sort the genuine from the fake. Tackle in teams or go the distance alone. But be prepared to pit your mental agility and general knowledge against some of the world's top journalists - and see the world through the eyes of The Economist.

Oddly Informative

Emma — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The more we ponder, the odder the world can seem. How do footballers get their shirt numbers? Why does having daughters make couples more likely to divorce? How do you move a horse from one country to another? What counts as a journey into space? The keen minds at The Economist contemplate all these questions and more in their quest for the globe’s most extraordinary quandaries and conundrums, with bizarre facts and headscratchers that show the world is even stranger than we might have thought. From plant-based milk and supermoons to the next Dalai Lama and what really happened at the storming of the Bastille, this collection of the oddest and most mindboggling explanations will amaze and delight in equal measure.

A Brief History of Motion

Emma — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

‘Speckled with anecdotes, insights and surprises. It is great fun – and utterly timely’ Sunday Times‘Standage writes with a masterly clarity’ New York Times‘The product of deep research, great intelligence and burnished prose . . . It is rare that I encounter a non-fiction author whose prose is so elegant that it is worth reading for itself. Standage is a writer of this class’ Wall Street Journal Beginning around 3,500 BC with the wheel, and moving through the eras of horsepower, trains and bicycles, Tom Standage puts the rise of the car – and the future of urban transport – into a broader historical context.Our society has been shaped by the car in innumerable ways, many of which are so familiar that we no longer notice them. Why does red mean stop and green mean go? Why do some countries drive on the left, and some on the right? How did cars, introduced only a little over a century ago, change the way the world was administered, laid out and policed, along with experiences like eating and shopping? And what might travel in a post-car world look like?As social transformations from ride-sharing to the global pandemic force us to critically re-examine our relationship with personal transportation, A Brief History of Motion is an essential contribution to our understanding of how the modern world came to be.

Truly Peculiar

Emma — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Our extraordinary world makes more (and sometimes less) sense when you wonder:What’s driving the international turkey-meat boom?How does a cannonball determine a maritime boundary?Where can you wed your mobile phone?Why do septuagenarians have a better chance of summiting Mount Everest than ever?The ever-keen minds of The Economist Explains solve all these riddles and more in their latest encyclopaedic excursion around the globe. Baffle your friends and colleagues with unconventional headscratchers that shed surprising light on science, culture, world affairs and more. From the underground trade in hair to Hollywood’s role in the creation of the snow globe, Truly Peculiar takes a walk on the weird side.

A Brief History of Motion

Emma — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000