The Great Book of Pub Trivia: Hilarious Pub Quiz & Bar Trivia Questions (Trivia Quiz Books)

NOTE: The author informed me that this book was available for free at the time on Amazon and asked me to write a review.Bill O'Neill has written a number of books on trivia on Amazon, all of which seem to compile hundreds of essentially useless but practically fascinating tidbits of information. In "The Great Book of Pub Trivia," he dispenses this information in the form of a series of quizzes, all geared along the lines of the questions one might encounter at an actual pub's trivia night contest. Unfortunately, while the concept is good, the execution is extremely faulty, so much so that most bouncers would probably toss the book out of their own pubs on an actual trivia night."Pub Trivia" takes the form of a series of 71 quizzes, each containing five questions, and two bonus quizzes on world leaders and other world figures with 22 and 26 questions respectively, for a total of just over 400 questions. The questions appear on one or two pages (depending on your reading device) and the answers on the page that follows. Further, O’Neill actually includes more that those 400 bits of trivia he asks about. For example, in a question on common fears, he tells readers the medical term for various types of fears (including a fear of clowns) before asking them to name another. Each question is a paragraph long and generally gives several facts about a person, place, or event before asking readers to name it. So, the total amount of information in the book is considerable. The subject matter of the questions varies widely, much like a typical episode of “Jeopardy,” including history, science, geography, literature, art, and pop culture. Further, the book includes events occurring in the summer of 2017, so it’s quite timely.Unfortunately, O’Neill’s desire for timeliness and his haste in publishing “Pub Trivia” are its downfall as well. I’m not sure when it was written, but it was published on October 7, 2017, and one of the questions asks who won the U.S. Open Women’s Tennis Championship, a match that occurred on September 9 of that year, so it’s clear that the book was rushed into production. As a result, it’s riddled with typos, misspellings, awkward phrasings (a couple of times he repeats a sentence practically verbatim in two places in the same question), and poorly phrased questions that practically give away the answer. For example, he asks the name of a former Olympic event that derives its name from an ancient myth about the sun and moon engaging in a celestial tug of war. Even on the “Stupid Answers” category of “Jeopardy,” the questions are usually a bit more challenging.But those awkward stylistic mistakes aren’t nearly as bad as the out-and-out errors in “Pub Trivia.” I didn’t by any means attempt to fact check the book, so I have no way of knowing just how much incorrect information it contains, but some of the errors are glaring. At one point, in a question about Winston Churchill, O’Neill identifies the subject as a Labour politician. Churchill was actually a famous Conservative, and this mistake is akin to identifying Barack Obama as a Republican. I spotted several of these blatant errors, leading me to believe there were probably a number more that lurked in the book as well.These mistakes aren’t even the worst ones in “Pub Trivia.” It does require some degree of fact checking to research some of the inaccuracies I noted. But it requires absolutely no fact checking, only a rudimentary amount of proofreading, to figure out that the name of a well-known action movie starring Uma Thurman is not, in fact, Uma Thurman, which is the answer given in the book. Similarly, the name of the title song from a particular Lenny Kravitz album is not Lenny Kravitz, nor is the smallest instrument of the woodwind family the woodwind. Those mistakes add up over the course of the book, to the extent where it seemed as if nearly every quiz contained a question that was flawed in one way or another, an unacceptably high ratio for most people.From the rate that author O’Neill is cranking out these trivia books on Amazon, it would appear that his writing process appears to be somewhat of an assembly-line operation. That doesn’t mean that the idea or the process itself is wrong. In fact, there is a good bit of entertaining information (assuming it’s accurate) in “Pub Trivia.” But a self-imposed tight production schedule is no excuse for sloppiness and gross inaccuracy, especially in a book whose sole reason for existence is to inform people about interesting facts. I can’t imagine people who don’t know the answer to the Uma Thurman or Lenny Kravitz questions being happy when they turn to the answer page and discover that they will have to research the answer for themselves or forever remain in the dark. I received this book for free during a promotional period, but O’Neill currently charges $3.99 for it. People who pay that amount of money deserve a book that at least tries to get things right, something O’Neill clearly has not done here. “Pub Trivia” resembles a frosty mug of bad beer; it looks good but you won’t like the taste.

Author Bill O’Neill has authored many books on Trivia and stands as somewhat of an expert in this field! His topics include movies, football, baseball, rock music and simply random trivia facts. To set the mood of the book Bill states, ‘Welcome to The Great Book of Pub Trivia! Get ready to dig in to some fun and nostalgic trivia quizzes and that surely will make your mind spin. This book is meant to be fun and can be used by yourself, just reading and testing your skills or it can be used as a fun game with scoring system with your friends and family. Every quiz section has five questions followed by the answers on the next page. Enough with the boring introduction… let the fun trivia begin!’The book is divided into 71 quizzes followed on the next page by the answers. An example may help the reader delve into this world: Quiz 29 1. Which boys name means "he who resembles God”? This is the name of the King of Pop, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, and Catherine Zeta Jones’ husband. 2. Madonna has had top 10 singles like Borderline, Like a Virgin, and Into the Groove. What was her first? It was her breakout track which features the lyrics, “You can turn this world around, and bring back all of those happy days. Put your troubles down.” Name this song. 3. What is a form of traditional mining that extracts gold from a placer deposit using a pan? The process is one of the simplest ways to extract gold. In many parts of the world it was abandoned because it leads to major soil erosion and damage to the environment. What is it called? 4. What is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months so that evening daylight lasts longer? This usually happens at the start of the spring, and only an adjustment of 1 hour is made to clocks. What is the name of this process? 5. This is an Italian luxury vehicle manufacturer established in 1914 in Bologna. Its tagline is "Luxury, sports, and style cast in exclusive cars," and the brand's mission statement is to "build ultra-luxury performance automobiles with timeless Italian style, accommodating bespoke interiors, and effortless, signature-sounding power”. The company's headquarters are now in Modena, and its emblem is a trident. What is the name of this carmaker?Turn the page for the answers - 1. Michael, 2. Holiday, 3. Gold panning, 4. Daylight saving time, and 5. Maserati.Not only is the book entertaining – it is also very instructive for every reader. Have fun, learn, and be ready for the next gathering of very smart friends! You’ll be on top. Grady Harp, October 17

This 243-page book is full of hilarious trivia questions which is fun whether one reads it alone or as a game with others. The are all kinds of questions covering all parts of life, such as the following (in my words):What unfinished book by F. Scott Fitzgerald was recently made into an Amazon series?What famous serial killer terrorized London in 1888 and killed five prostitutes?What science fiction drama aired in 1993-2002 has just been rebooted to a ten-episode show?

Good book of trivia covering broad range of topics from history, geography, pop culture and astronomy. The format is a quiz is 5 questions with the answer at the end on a separate page so you can participate if you are the reader. There are a few questions that I could not verify if truly factual and thus the questions is esoteric. The questions at times are long and participants lose interest in the question before it can be finished.Overall, I have found the book to be interesting, stimulating and participants of all knowledge levels can answer and not feel discouraged.

A good trivia book to take on road trips if you know history, literature etc. Some are easy and some make you think. It gives you hints as you read. Sometimes the answers are on the next page so you have to cover the answers so you don't accidentally see them.

This is a great book to have on your Kindle. Ideal for all those who love tidbits of facts. If you're a fan of trivia/interesting facts or stories, you'll love this book. Anytime you need a short read (waiting at the dentist's office, waiting to pick up the kids from school), this book will fill the gap. Or, even better, use it down your local pub!

To me the book’s title ‘The Great Book of Pub Trivia’ is somewhat misleading as its lengthy questions demand more general and even specialist knowledge. Also from my point of view this makes the book less useful for setting pub quizzes, and it is better suited for filling odd moments by testing oneself. Dare I suggest it would be perfect in a dentist’s waiting room?Questions are a bit biased to America but cover a wide range of subjects and are suitably demanding for a variety of situations. There are 71 sections with 5 questions to each, followed by 2 bonus sections of firstly 22 questions on World Leaders, and secondly 26 questions on Notable People in History. This makes over 400 questions, and a big plus for me is having answers immediately follow their appropriate section – vital for Kindle format.

... to stand out from the crowd there has to be something different about it. This book is better than the average because it includes that little bit of extra detail that helps with understanding the question that bit more and that's always useful. I'd have preferred to see answers that explained it a bit more but there it is, I can't have everything!

Good quality questions but rather lengthy and duplicated, resulting in use of two pages when one would suffice - lots of white space.

We love trivia and usually go for pub trivia and this book didn't disappoint, very good hence 5* rating review

Not funny, just very long winded questions involving facts. Wasn’t really what I was looking for to run short fun quiz’s for work