Chain of Curiosity by Sandi Toksvig

Chain of Curiosity Reviews

• 
  Alisha

  An amusing collection of newspaper columns by comedian and resident of Britain Sandi Toksvig. Best read in snippets of a few at a time for greatest entertainment value.
• 
  Kirsty

  An entertaining little read, full of random facts and humour. I think it would be best read as originally written though, one column at a time... reading more than one at once I think it lost its impact and interest value for me.
• 
  Jason Mills

  This is a collection of Toksvig's columns from the Sunday Telegraph, running from 19 June 2005 to 5 April 2009, each about a thousand words long. They are light fare, cheery-yet-grumbly ramblings, laced with benign humour:
  

  It won't surprise you to learn that as a Dane I have had a long association with [Lego]. (Indeed, if you have the average British person's knowledge of Denmark, you might be equally unmoved to learn that I was brought up by herrings and once met Hamlet's father.)

  
  The pieces are composed of personal anecdotes and historical trivia. Sandi presumably trawls the internet for this stuff, but she succeeds in pulling up endless interesting factoids. Idi Amin kept films of Tom & Jerry. Longfellow was the first American with indoor plumbing. The Twelve Days of Christmas is a coded Catholic catechism. Here's a story about a little girl visiting the studio of sculptor Gutzon Borglum as he chisels at a block of stone:
  

  Lincoln's face was becoming recognisable and the child stared at the piece in amazement. "Is that Abraham Lincoln?" she asked. "Yes," Borglum replied. The girl shook her head and breathlessly asked: "How did you know he was inside there?"

  
  The book is crammed with little smiles like that, and though they may all lie within the public domain, it is very pleasant to have them served up in snack-size nuggets like this. Attempts to retain all these oddities in your head are doomed to fail, as the book overflows with them. I give it 3 stars, since it's finally insubstantial; but it hovers towards 4 stars as a fun read.
• 
  Emma

  So I am slightly biased when it comes to Sandi Toksvig, I pretty much adore her and worship the ground she walks on, so needless to say an entire book just filled with Sandi's witty ramblings was right up my street! Her blend of humour and sarcasm teamed with a wealth of fun historical, political and purely random facts and trivia in the hundred or so articles gathered here make this a nice diverting little read. This is a perfect read for fans of Sandi or for people who want to read something fun(ny) but don't have much time - each article is no longer than 2 pages, meaning that the book is easy to pick up, read one or two and then put back down. This was the manner in which I had originally intended to read it, just in drips and drabs when I had no real time to involve myself in reading, but honestly... I devoured this very quickly, I found Sandi's writing to be very addictive and just could not bring myself to leave it alone.
• 
  Gill

  I'm a big fan of Sandi Toksvig; I have read all her fictional works and never miss an episode of
  BBC Radio 4's News Quiz.
  
  However I'm not a reader of the Sunday Telegraph and was surprised to learn that she pens a regular column. Around one hundred of these articles, written between 2005 and 2009, are reproduced in this book.
  
  They are all beautifully random and meandering, always amusing and educational, some ephemeral and some thought-provoking. And if nothing else, the book introduced me to the
  30-Second Bunnies Theatre Library!
• 
  Richard Thomas

  I read this with great pleasure. No profundity just a nicely written collection of articles from the Sunday Telegraph which can be dipped into and read again with pleasure. She can show acerbity alongside her ready wit and good humour.
• 
  Susan Morton

  Absolutely brilliant. Just wish I could write like this.
• 
  Lisa Culligan

  Good to dip in and out of. Some funny anecdotes on the vagaries of life.
• 
  Karen

  Interesting, entertaining, amusing.
• 
  Fiona

  Not a book to plough through, but for some light-hearted bite-sized wit to take you to lala-land before bed, a treasure.
• 
  Theresa

  I love her style of writing. This title is perfect because she follows the train of her own curiosity into history, geography, philosophy and many of manifestations of her thought process. She is witty and smart. She is like a historical gossip columnist telling secrets about famous and infamous people, mostly dead. This book is a collection of published columns, often citing the activities of people either born or died on the day she is writing. She often includes hilarious puns or jokes, making this one of the best history books I've ever read. I also share her nickname: Stump. Her nickname was coined because of her height; mine was a shortened version of "Tree," my previous name shortened from Theresa which was later changed to Stumpy, a nickname I carried through high school and much of college.
• 
  Katrina Brown

  I love Sandi Toksvig - whether on BBC Radio's The News Quiz or currently heading up QI. She is intelligent, compassionate, passionate, and just plain interesting. This book is made up of columns she has written for newspapers and is eclectic and quite light reading. A 'tickle-your-fancy' book, which will hopefully whet your appetite for the topics raised and encourage you to follow the leads to greater knowledge.
• 
  Sarah

  There were lots of really interesting facts in this book and I like Sandi's writing style a lot. The only reason I didn't give a higher score was the fact that the book was really disjointed and I found it hard to get into it. It probably didn't help that I read the book at lunchtimes at work over a long period of time though so that was mostly my fault!
• 
  Vilhelmiina

  These were funny, but reading short column after short column did get a little tedious at times. I liked the earlier ones more, but the international women’s day one right near the end was a favourite too.
• 
  Mary

  A nice collection of thoughts, easy to dip in and out of (hence why it took me 7 months to read). Given that they were originally newspaper columns it seems unfair to criticise them for feeling outdated (2008-2009 feels like an awfully long time ago now).
• 
  Liz

  Wonderfully funny!
• 
  Gemma

  Diverting but a but pedestrian. Hardly changed my world and seemed to me the result of hours on Wikipedia.
• 
  Mary

  Funny and fascinating, you can see why she was asked to present QI.