By clicking “Accept,” you agree to the use of cookies and similar technologies on your device as set forth in our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy. Please note that certain cookies are essential for this website to function properly and do not require user consent to be deployed.

Alternative Facts

200 Incredible, Absolutely True(-ish) Stories

Contributors

By Alex Palmer

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Oct 9, 2017
Page Count
208 pages
Publisher
BookAnnex
ISBN-13
9781435166288

Price

$3.99

Price

$4.99 CAD

Format

ebook (Digital original)

Format:

ebook (Digital original) $3.99 $4.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around October 9, 2017. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Did you hear that Pope Francis endorsed Trump? Or that you have to pay to perform “Happy Birthday to You” in public? How about that the Soviet Union once banned microwaves out of fear that they were spreading diseases? These are all totally true things!* Everyone is saying so.

There’s a lot of weird news out there today (thanks, Internet!). But given the speed of modern media, often these stories get disseminated faster than they can be fact-checked. As Mark Twain once said, “a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on.” (Actually, that’s been attributed to about a half-dozen different people in various publications, but still, the point remains.)

In Alternative Facts, author Alex Palmer (Weird-o-pedia) collects 200 of the oddest stories he could find, ranging from history to pop culture and science, which have been disseminated over the years, whether true or not. You’ll have to flip to the back of the book to find out which ones were real and which were not; but you couldn’t be fooled that easily, right? 

[* Actually, just one of those things is really really true; can you guess which one?]


Alex Palmer

About the Author

Alex Palmer is a freelance journalist and author living in New York City. He covers business, travel, culture and pop culture for publications like The New York Post, Time Out New York, Publishers Weekly, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times’ The Local, Huffington Post, and Editor & Publisher. The son of two teachers, he loves learning and writing about odd, funny, or surprising stories behind familiar subjects.

His second book, Weird-o-pedia: The Ultimate Collection of Surprising, Strange, and Incredibly Bizarre Facts About (Supposedly) Ordinary Things, was published in July 2012. His first book, Literary Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Literature, takes a look at some of the more colorful aspects of great writers and their works, and was published in October 2010 by Skyhorse Publishing.

Learn more about this author