William Hartston is a Cambridge-educated mathematician and industrial psychologist. Between 1962 and 1987 he played chess competitively, becoming an international master and winning the British chess championship in 1973 and 1975. He runs competitions in creative thinking at the annual Mind Sports Olympiad, writes the off-beat Beachcomber column for the Daily Express, where he is also the opera critic, and is the author of several books on chess, numbers, humour and trivia, including The Things That Nobody Knows and Even More Things That Nobody Knows.
Discovering the many undiscovered things that one thought had been discovered already is one of the joys of this book... You might have thought that wallowing in ignorance is a tedious and fruitless occupation. As Hartston proves entertainingly, how wrong you would be. * Daily Express on The Things That Nobody Knows * Properly researched, and the elegance of its pop-cosmology or pop-biology mini-narratives rivals that of many specialists. It is slyly witty, and pleasingly optimistic. * Steven Poole, Guardian on The Things That Nobody Knows * Each mystery is delightfully penned in bite-sized chunks that often includes humorous repertoire... highly enjoyable... Captivating and inspiring. * New Scientist on The Things That Nobody Knows *