n these days of “Fake news” and presidents and parties who don’t care if what they spout is a lie or not, it’s fun to read a book that, as the title says, works at “Debunking the most commonly repeated myths”.

For example:

Do you think Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone?

Mammals arrived after the dinosaurs became extinct?

Humans only use 10 percent of their brains?

The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure visible from space?

Author Jamie Frater piles through many, many myths, things we only know through hearsay (i.e. Facebook). I’d wished I’d read this book before spouting off about toilets flushing one way north of the equator, the opposite south. And there was the interesting one about how artificial sweeteners don’t cause cancer (when you read about the tests and how misrepresented they were, you’ll add a touch of sweetener to your coffee again (as I have) and breathe easier). Sadly, cell phones don’t cause cancer (I was rooting for that one). But no, it was a very interesting book.

Up until the end. It’s as if the writer ran out of materials (and with all the information out there, I’m sure he could have trolled Snopes for ideas). In the last section he began to literally repeat himself, cycling through several myth groups: nudists, Wicca, Muslims, Catholics and ninjas. After a while, by the fourth (or more) clarification (many of them close to earlier ones) it got a bit fatiguing (I actually skipped some of the last). I thought the book should have ended on a crescendo but instead it closed on an echoing whimper. Too bad.

Still, a fun read.

>>>NO LIES, NONE AT ALL, IN EARLY RETYREMENT WHERE A COMPUTER SCIENTIST FALLS BACK INTO TIME AND HAS TO SAVE TYRE FROM ALEXANDER THE GREAT. ALL TRUE!<<<