Advanced Banter

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Advanced Banter
Advanced Banter.jpg
The UK cover.
Author John Lloyd
John Mitchinson
IllustratorCover illustration by Piers Sanford
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Subject Quotations/Trivia
Publisher Faber and Faber
Publication date
1 October 2008
Media typeHardback
Pages428
ISBN 978-0-571-23372-4
Preceded by The Book of Animal Ignorance  
Followed by The QI Book of the Dead  

Advanced Banter: The QI Book of Quotations, known as If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People? in the United States, is the third title in a series of books based on the intellectual British panel game QI , written by series-creator John Lloyd and head-researcher John Mitchinson. It is a book of "quite interesting" quotations.

<i>QI</i> British comedy panel game television quiz show

QI is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and co-produced by John Lloyd, and features permanent panellist Alan Davies. Stephen Fry was host of the show from its initial pilot, before departing after the final episode of the M series in 2016, with frequent QI panellist Sandi Toksvig replacing him prior to the beginning of the N series in 2016.

John Lloyd (producer) British television producer, and writer

John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd is an English television producer and writer. He has worked on comedy television programmes including Not the Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Blackadder and QI. He is currently the presenter of BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity.

John Mitchinson is the head of research for the British television panel game QI, and is also the managing director of Quite Interesting Limited. He is co-writer of the QI series of books with the show's creator John Lloyd. The two men are normally referred to as "The Two Johns" and are seen as the main controllers of QI, as they do most of the research of the show. His most recent work, 1,411 Quite Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways, a collaboration with John Lloyd and James Harkin, was released in 2015 with W.W. Norton and Company.

Contents

Publication history

Advanced Banter was first published by Faber in hardback on 1 October 2008. A paperback version of Advanced Banter was published on 5 November 2009. [1] The book was released in the United States under the title If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People? on 4 August 2009. [2]

Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London, the United Kingdom. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, William Golding, Samuel Beckett, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon.

Structure

Of the previous QI books, the structure is akin to the second book, The Book of Animal Ignorance , which is an encyclopaedic listing of 100 animals, compared to the first book, The Book of General Ignorance , which was written in a question and answer format. Advanced Banter contains a series of quotes which are divided into over 400 separate topics, such as "Acting", "Action" and "Adventure", which are listed alphabetically. [3] However, there are no topics under the letter "X". [4] As with the two previous books, there are also contributions by two television stars of QI: host Stephen Fry and panellist Alan Davies. Fry writes an introduction entitled "Prologue", while Davies writes a section called "Proverb", which contains a proverb which he himself has written: "A small pie is soon eaten." [5]

<i>The Book of Animal Ignorance</i> book by John Lloyd

The Book of Animal Ignorance is the second title in a series of books based on the intellectual British panel game QI, written by series-creator John Lloyd and head-researcher John Mitchinson. It is a trivia book, consisting largely of little-known facts about various animals, alongside factual corrections to other pieces of supposedly "well-known" trivia that, although widely believed, are not always accurate. It is a sequel to The Book of General Ignorance.

<i>The Book of General Ignorance</i> book by John Lloyd

The Book of General Ignorance is the first in a series of books based on the final round in the intellectual British panel game QI, written by series-creator John Lloyd and head-researcher John Mitchinson, to help spread the QI philosophy of curiosity to the reading public. It is a trivia book, aiming to address and correct the comprehensive and humiliating catalogue of all the misconceptions, mistakes and misunderstandings in 'common knowledge'—it is therefore known not as a 'General Knowledge' book, but as 'General Ignorance'.

Stephen Fry British comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Stephen John Fry is an English actor, comedian and writer. He and Hugh Laurie are the comic double act Fry and Laurie, who starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster.

Reception

Boyd Tonkin in The Independent wrote of Lloyd and Mitchinson: "They prove in spades that the distinction between reference and entertainment has collapsed, with no exact sources given and a preface that styles the book as a 'manifesto' for pithy wit rather than a monument of scholarship. For all that, Lloyd and Mitchinson – the Two Horsemen of the Apocryphal, maybe – manage on every page an Oxford- and Chambers-beating ratio of gems to duds when it comes to imperishable one-liners. Quotation of the year for 2008? Thomas Jefferson on high finance: 'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.' Give that man an overdraft." [6]

Boyd Tonkin is an English writer, journalist and critic. He was the literary editor of The Independent newspaper from 1996 to 2013. A long-time proponent of foreign-language literature, he is the author of "The 100 Best Novels in Translation". He has been involved with leading literary prizes such as the Man Booker International Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

<i>The Independent</i> British online daily newspaper

The Independent is a British online newspaper. Established in 1986 as a politically independent national morning newspaper published in London. It was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev in 2010. The last printed edition of The Independent was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only its digital editions.

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Alan Davies English comedian, actor, presenter and author

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The Museum of Curiosity, formerly titled The Professor of Curiosity, is a comedy panel game on BBC Radio 4 that was first broadcast on 20 February 2008. It is hosted by John Lloyd. He acts as the head of the (fictional) titular museum, while a panel of three guests – typically a comedian, an author and an academic – each donate to the museum an ‘object’ that fascinates them. The radio medium ensures that the suggested exhibits can be absolutely anything, limited only by the guests’ imaginations.

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<i>The QI Book of the Dead</i> book by John Lloyd

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<i>The Second Book of General Ignorance</i> book by John Lloyd

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References

International Standard Book Number Unique numeric book identifier

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.

Notes

  1. Wolf, Ian. "'QI' Merchandise". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 13 March 2009.
  2. Wilson, Craig (15 July 2009). "The Final Word: For some, even 15 minutes would be too long". USA Today . Retrieved 16 July 2009.
  3. Lloyd, John; Mitchinson, John (2008). Advanced Banter. London: Faber and Faber. p. v. ISBN   0-571-23372-4. Archived from the original on 15 March 2009. Retrieved 13 March 2009.
  4. Lloyd and Mitchinson, p. viii
  5. Lloyd and Mitchinson, p. xi
  6. Tonkin, Boyd (28 November 2008). "Fact and fun with the stars of geek heaven". The Independent . Retrieved 13 March 2009.