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Our Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fun FAQs book has been released in a new AMI Digest Version. This abbreviated edition offers nearly 100 pages of trivia for the bargain price of $2.98. No word yet on when and where the book will be available, but we’ll let you know as soon as we find out.

Thanks to those of you who wrote, called, or emailed to let us know that you read the kind article that Julie Hinds wrote about us in The Detroit Free Press or one of the other media sources that ran the interview.

Some of you had little to say other than to point out that we’re overweight (thanks for this; we were under the mistaken impression that all of the mirrors in our home were concave). For some reason, these people had nothing better to do.

On a brighter note, scores of people contacted us to express that the story inspired them with some feel-good vibrations. Others were pleased for us that we’ve managed to attain both personal and professional success as a husband-and-wife team. Thank you; we worked very hard to get where we are.

sandy@pigpencil.com

We thought it was innovative when Broadway Books chose to publish our first book, The Snapple Aptitude Test, as both a paperback and in Adobe e-book format. My, how things have changed in a few years. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fun FAQs is available from the publisher in no less than three digital formats: Adobe Reader , eReader, and Microsoft Reader. No Kindle edition as of yet, but feel free to ask for one. Maybe they just need some prompting!

Kindle edition of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fun FAQs now available!

Globetrotting: When a road trip seems interminable
The Boston Globe, June 10, 2008
by Anne Fitzgerald, Globe Travel Editor

My husband listens to talk radio, my brother-in-law books on tape.

How to otherwise engage them on our next drive to New York? Sandy Wood and Kara Kovalchik may have the answer: their Frequently Asked Questions for the “curious-minded.”

The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Fun FAQs’ includes more than a thousand questions on subjects ranging from food and celebrities to myths and team sports.

It’s available on Amazon for $11.01.

While I can’t imagine besting my travelmates on American history or movie questions, it might be fun trying.

Our newest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fun FAQs, should appear in stores in early May. Inside, you’ll find more than 1,000 entertaining questions and answers about varying subjects from baseball to Beethoven to bananas. This is our fourth book in the past two years and our third offering for Alpha Books, who also published our gift hardcovers The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Not So Useless Knowledge and The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to More Not So Useless Knowledge.

Click here to get 5 percent off Amazon’s already low price if you order it before the release date of May 6. Thanks!

THE POCKET IDIOT’S GUIDE TO MORE NOT SO USELESS FACTS
Errant Dreams, March 12, 2008

Pros: Entertaining read for us overly-curious trivia buffs
Cons: Some entries stop a bit short
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to More Not So Useless Facts was compiled by Dane Sherwood, Sandy Wood, and Kara Kovalchik. It isn’t a reference book in which to look up trivia—instead it’s more of a free-association of weird and wacky facts that you’re likely to find entertaining and/or useful.

For instance, the ‘potatoes’ entry details the truth behind sweet potatoes, the year that Mr. Potato Head gave up his pipe (and why), and how NBA star Anthony “Spud” Webb got his nickname.

• In 1944, the H.W. Lay Company became one of the first snack food makers to advertise on television, with a cartoon character called Oscar, the Happy Potato. It was never explained how Oscar was happy to be sliced wafer-thin and deep-fried in a vat of boiling oil.

As you can see, the authors realize that since this isn’t a reference book, a dry recitation of facts isn’t in order. There’s plenty of tone, snark, and humor to add life to the brief sections.

There are so many fascinating tidbits of information in here that I think I drove my husband a bit batty last night reading parts of the book aloud to him (sorry, dear!). They range from modern points of law and pop-culture to very distant history.

Occasionally I found myself chafing a bit at the lack of information, when it seemed that the authors didn’t quite finish a thought. For example,

• Many national flags are similar in design, but two pairs of them are indistinguishable to all but the trained eye.

While the entry goes on to explain how those two pairs of flags are the same, it doesn’t mention how the trained eye can distinguish them, which is like setting up the joke and failing to deliver on the punch line. Luckily, however, such instances are few and far between.

So if you’d like to know which extremely well-known advertising jingles Barry Manilow wrote (and are now stuck in my head for the day), why cats always head for the folks who aren’t cat people, or the absolutely hysterical real name of Spuds MacKenzie (Bud Lite’s mascot, who was actually quite female), grab a copy of More Not So Useless Facts. You’ll find out that product placement in TV shows has been around since at least 1955 (and which show it appeared in), how end-zone dances got started and progressed, and why a pony once took a ride in a White House elevator.

And if you’re the kind of person (like me) who just loves these esoteric bits of information, how could you not want to learn something like that?!

According to at least one fan mail/autograph hound board, Wendy Kaufman (known as “The Snapple Lady” to those who remember the TV spots) has offered our book, The Snapple Aptitude Test, as a gift to some who have written her:

http://www.fanmail.biz/mboard/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=84014

Snapple had planned to do much more promotion with the book upon its initial release, but had a change in command between the planning of the book and its actual execution. It’s nice to see that they’re still finding ways to employ it, however.
Neat… we’ll have to send her a copy and ask her to sign it for us!

HOLIDAY HELPER
Daily Breeze (Torrence, CA), December 8, 2006

Need some help with your holiday shopping? Check out our daily gift ideas — you might find just the thing for someone on your list.

Here’s an idea for the friend who claims he’ll try out for “Jeopardy” soon. The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Not-So-Useless Facts, by Dane Sherwood, Sandy Wood and Kara Kovalchik, is bursting with more than 1,000 interesting, shocking and yes, even mundane tidbits. Yep, it’s filled with factoids gathered by a team of expert fact finders and pop culture experts. Want a teaser? The sailfish is the fastest fish in the sea, clocking in at 68 mph underwater, two miles per hour faster than the cheetah, the fastest land animal.

Cost: $14.95.

USE YOUR HEAD: A TRIVIA GUIDE IS A GOOD GIFT
St. Petersburg Times (Florida), November 25, 2006
by Judy Stark, Homes & Garden Editor

Giving a present to the Cliff Clavin on your list, the know-it-all letter carrier from Cheers? Want to settle arguments (or start them)? Your troubles are over.

The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Not-So-Useless Facts ($14.95) is full of the real deal: What’s the largest sculptured monument in the U.S.? (No, it’s not Mount Rushmore.) What’s the fastest fish in the sea? And which Beatles song inspired the name of the first hominid skeleton found in Ethiopia? It’s all here.

BOOKS AND IDEAS: Snapple and pop quizzes
Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia), October 29, 2006
by May Brown, CanWest News Service

The Snapple Aptitude Test: Real Facts for Real Life
by Sandy Wood and Kara Kovalchik; Broadway Books; paperback, 224 pages; $12.95

The Snapple company put this quiz book together as a spin-off from the Real Facts printed under their bottle caps. Their approach here, like their advertising image, is lighthearted, starting with their scoring categories.

Real Genius tops the list with 1,000 points, followed by Fact Fanatic, Seriously Cerebral, and Brainy, Around the 600 to 699-point level, the names get really creative: Snapple Savant, Egghead, Sharpie, Radio-FACT-ive. In the 200 to 299-point category, we’re still considered Not Too Shabby, but dropping to the 100 to 199, we’ve become Factose Intolerant. If we score only 10 to 99 points out of the maximum 1,000, we’re kindly referred to as a Newbie. But if we get between zero and nine answers? Cro-Magnon.

The book contains 10 categories, from nature, music and movies to sports and technology, so there’s bound to be a subject area in which an individual can excel.

Do you know how many sets of twins lived in the Full House household (trick question!) or how golfer Jack Nicklaus got the nickname The Golden Bear? Can you guess which letter is removed from “vodka” to make the Russian word for water? If not, you can look up the answers at the end of each section, satisfying your curiosity and, as the title implies, adding to your knowledge of “real facts for real life.”