As part of The Book Of Everyone team, I work at a company that’s helped create 400,000 personalised books and sent them to people in 175 countries and counting. It means we put a lot of time into thinking about post. And there’s a lot of post to think about.…
Outside the box ways to help kids grow up
There’s a whole world of “wisdom” out there about how kids should behave, what they should do, and how they should be raised. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the number of different parenting guides in your local bookshop. But is tradition or popularity actually best?…
Why do we give gifts at Christmas?
UK shoppers are predicted to spend an average of £544 each this Christmas. US shoppers will fork over $862 apiece. But why do we give gifts at Christmas, anyway? Contrary to what the naysayers would have you believe, presents at Christmas are NOT an invention of Toys ‘R’ Us. The…
Happy curious Christmas: The strangest traditions from around the world
Wherever there’s Christmas, there are Christmas traditions. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from. If you celebrate Christmas, then I’ll bet you can think of plenty of things that are seasonal traditions in your country, town, and family. It might be the specific date that people start…
Where do “table manners” come from?
We’ve all been there when we were little nippers. The family’s having a get together, Aunty Judy has already had five glasses of wine and is telling everyone about her holiday romance in The Maldives. Meanwhile, under the table that bothersome little cousin is biting everyone’s knees whilst you’re trying…
14 unusual words for parts of the body
I stumbled across the word dactylion the other day, and I suddenly found myself curious about other unusual words for parts of the human body. I was never lucky enough to take an anatomy class in high school, so diving into the linguistic world of body bits was a voyage of…
Size doesn’t matter: The world’s tiniest countries
There are 195 officially recognised countries in the world today. They come in all shapes and sizes… but the big guys tend to get all the attention. What about the smallest countries, though? You might not know these countries from school geography lessons, but they’re just as fascinating as their…
Going the distance: Long-running, non-running marathons
Marathons take their name and distance from the fable of Pheidippides. He was a Greek courier who, so the story goes, ran from the battlefield back to Athens to report victory in the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. Twenty-six miles is a long way to run. The current world…
3 ways history was more colourful than you think
Most of the records from days of yore come through in black and white. Colour photography didn’t become popular until the mid-20th century, which gives us the impression that everything that came before then was rather drab. Pre-photography records only come in whatever physical artifacts have managed to weather the…