After a while you can come to know what you're going to get from Charles Panati. Lots of little articles full of facts (at least I hope they are) that you can't wait but to drop into conversation so as to sound intelligent.

"Panati's Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything and Everybody" muses on death for a while before moving onto other, just as upbeat topics like cemeteries and last wills and testaments. He eventually gets back to deaths with references to varying forms of capital punishments and species extinctions, stretching from the trilobite to the quagga and heath hen.

If I was a bogan and left reading material next to the toilet, this would be the sort of book you'd find in my bathroom. ( )

I love books full of trivia and facts and tidbits of history, and Charles Panati excels at exactly that. This (and the other books in the series) can be opened at nearly any page and read through for any length, and you'll come out with something useful for a conversation, to start your own research, or just to think about. ( )