This was a modest little 250-pager that I got for Christmas from my sister. The subtitle is really only partially true; this book contains information that is both useless and gross, not one or the other. Some of the stuff in here was stuff I already knew about, but other stuff was new to me entirely. The book contained six sections, regarding the following: gross-sounding dishes from history and non-Western civilizations, peculiarities from the animal kingdom, historically disgusting cases of bodily functions, strange customs from history and non-Western civilizations, torture, and corpses. Yes, the last third of the book was all about brutal and savage forms of torture from throughout history and then all kinds of information on what happens once you die. How long does it take your bowels to release? For internal gasses to bloat up and seep out of your skin? For your eyes and brain to liquefy? For your skin to fall off? I'm sure you've always wanted to know these things, even if only for afterlife-planning purposes, and the good news is that you can find all the answers right here in this book. It was a quick and enjoyable read (even if the last 80 pages were particularly brutal and morbid), and the biggest problem I have with it is that it's just kind of a series of rapid-fire fun facts, so I'm not going to retain much of what I read about. Still, that only means it'll make for a great re-read someday. But not yet; the backlog is far from empty, and re-reads are out of the question for a while. Oh, and the titular answer? Communication. Fish fart to communicate with one another at night when its too dark to see one another. Interesting but useless, right? That's this book for you.
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