Go Figure: Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know: The Economist Explains

How do hurricanes get their names? Why are the world's vultures vanishing? And which countries lose the most on gambling? Here Economistdeputy editor Tom Standage has produced a compulsively readable survey of things we might know (What is El Niño?), wish we knew (Why can't I get a signal on my phone?), and have truthfully never pondered in our lives (Why do so many Dutch people only work part-time?). Standage's amusing short entries survey movies, money, religion, nature, and business; address such truisms as whether marriage makes you healthier; and even examine our prejudices—namely in how Europeans view each other. Here you will also find a comparison of which among the many actors who portrayed Batman were the tallest and the heaviest, and which incarnation of James Bond drank the most onscreen.