Summary

Is it true that elephants are afraid of mice?
How much gold does the United States store in Fort Knox?
Why do I get a headache when I eat ice cream too fast?
How did the "seventh inning stretch" originate?

As the official webmaster for Xerox, Bill McLain was surprised by the kinds of questions he was receiving, like whether people born blind can see in their dreams and why rabbits are associated with Easter. McLain began to answer each and every question--attracting national attention from MSNBC, CNN, and People--and the result, collected in Do Fish Drink Water?, is a surprising, funny, and informative collection of facts. McLain's answers can often be as wild as the questions and prompt entertaining anecdotes about where he found them. McLain explains how magnets are made, what caused the Great Depression of 1922, and even explains why cats purr. Also included is an extensive list of websites where he conducts research, offering an informative guide to making the most of the Internet.

Library Journal Review

Xerox web master McLain has compiled a fascinating, often hilarious list of questions submitted by the public to the Xerox web site and their supposed answers. The questions are divided into 20 categories, ranging from "Animal Kingdom" ("On a turkey, what is the name of that red thing that hangs down over the beak?") to "World" ("What are the seven wonders of the natural world?") to "Off the Wall" ("How long would it take to vacuum the state of Ohio?"). In addition to responding to these queries, McLain provides, at the end of each section, a list of between three and ten web sites that he recommends for further research. The "United States" section, for example, lists web sites for zip codes, the CIA, and the FBI as well as an online phone directory; the "Sports" section supplies URLs for the National Football League, major league baseball, and the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In the last few pages, McLain also lists major web search engines and offers a few general tips. With the exception of the suggested web sites, this title is similar to David Feldman's "Imponderables" series. Unfortunately, like the books in Feldman's series, this volume also suffers from a reliability problem: although McLain's answers sound authoritative, he only infrequently provides their original source. (And a surprisingly large number of answers in each section cannot be found using the web sites McLain recommends.) While this book is entertaining and makes for enjoyable browsing, it is not an appropriate choice for most reference collections. Recommended only for larger public libraries with a demand for humorous trivia books.ÄLeah J. Sparks, Bowie P.L., MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.