If you are like me, which I am positive at least one person out there is (my sympathies), you just don't have the time to read all 550,000 words of Tolstoy's War and Peace but you know it's going to be on life's test, then this is the book for you.

The MF team of writers is absolutely brilliant at reducing extremely complex and complicated material into terms that even someone with my limited mental faculties can grasp. I felt so energized and mentally refueled after reading this book I was able to assemble a fission bomb in my kitchen using simple tools like baking soda and peroxide. (Honestly, I don't understand why the terrorists are having such trouble, that thing exploded real good.)

Perhaps the best thing about the entire series of mental_floss books is how well they intertwine the elements of humor and sophisticated wit within nuggets of interesting facts. These writers know their audience: ADD suffering info junkies. The wisdom to combine information such as which geniuses were infected with syphilis with who suffered from drug addiction (in many cases both) takes a keen understanding of what the masses want to know.

There is no better way to impress your friends at a cocktail party that to rattle off histories greatest works of literature, and then follow up with a sweet anecdote about Mozart writing a dirty lyric for a canon which stated "Lick my [*blank*] nice and clean." The MF writers didn't include the actual word out of “common decency,” but I am guessing it wasn't his plate.