Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
 Brilliant book of quotes which is practically inexhaustible. June 12, 2009
Scott A. Booth (Wrangaton, England)
The 'QI Advanced Banter' book is a brilliant book for fans of memorable quotes and those people who want to memorise useful quips. The quotes range from well known public figures such as Martin Luther King and Socrates, to unknown figures such as Nan Porter. I recommend this book to any fan of literature or anyone interested in fun and memorable quotes.
a treat to leaf through June 8, 2009
Rachel Parris (London)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Don't be put off by the use of the word "banter" and the exclusively contemporary quotations on the front cover: for once, "advanced banter" is not a clumsy reference to laddish innuendo but, as you might expect of the people at QI, the original and correct use of the term. This is a collection of clever, witty pleasantry which appeals to every generation. Ranging from Hegel to Hicks and from Iqbal to Izzard, it is a useful and moreover entertaining collection of quotations, arranged into broad and not-so-broad subjects such as "Money", "Persuasion" "Celery" and, the house favourite, "Legs". The wide range of sources ensures it avoids covering the same old quotations you could have read in a 1963 Reader's Digest edition. Yes, it has all the important classics in it but it is fresh and funny and contains so much more than the usual Shakespeare and Voltaire. If you're looking for quotations, this is the book you need.
 I write as a sow piddles (Mozart) May 17, 2009
Jenny Peebles
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ever read the entirety of a reference book, cover to cover? Me neither. And you won't be counting Advanced Banter: The QI Book of Quotations as a first, I'm fairly sure. This rather sizeable collection definitely works best as something to dip into. The quotations are split thematically, and although you sense that they gathered the material first and then separated it out, this doesn't detract from its quality. Comedians, scientists, artists, statesmen, novelists and philosophers are counted among the talking heads in a collection that runs the gamut from the profound to the throwaway, the clever-clever to the surprisingly heartfelt. (It's this jumping about in terms of tone, by the way, that makes this book best taken down from your shelf and dipped into little and often.) All the usual topics are here - love, duty, wisdom - but much of the material is surprisingly fresh and wisely avoids many of the hackneyed aphorisms that we could probably all already quote. Less Oscar Wilde, more Russian proverbs, as it happens. Not that I subscribe to the really quite ridiculous premise of this book - that you might drop one of its pearls into your conversations. Not in the world I inhabit, certainly. However unrealistic, if you like what can be done with a well-chosen word, it's well worth swallowing this for the opportunity to treasure such lines as `You can recognise a cruel man: he cries in the cinema' (Graham Greene). I like that one.
Great at What it Does May 5, 2009
Lui_Gui (Scotland Land)
This is a book of Quotations. Although that idea might not appeal to everyone, this is a brilliant example of how a quotation book can interesting, sometimes funny and very useful.
This is the sort of book that stays beside your bed; when you aren't in the mood or too tired for a proper book or just reaiding to relax. As that it works better than perfectly.
Plus, it's a QI book so you know it's going to be great. It contains the best quotations, not just a book of Albert Einstein quotes plus a few others from people nobody knows of. There's a lot of effort n this book, and it shows.
Whether you want to fill your banter with intellectual nuggets of inf, or just after a book to read on the loo, this is the best man for the job.
Simply put, you'll enjoy it thoroughly.
Another QI delight - informative, enjoyable and well-researched April 16, 2009
A. I. McCulloch (Co Durham)
One of the things I most enjoyed about Advanced Banter was the informative little potted biographies that accompany some of the authors of quotes who have now slipped from the public eye.
There are unexpected inclusions - two quotes from Miss Piggy, one on squirrels and one on food - and others who you thought would perhaps be more widely quoted who almost slipped through. There is just one quote from Pope John Paul II for example. There are three quotes from comedian Mick Miller, only one from polymath Jonathan Miller and none from his witty contemporaries David Frost and Peter Cook.
A book to dip into then, not one in which you might find the origins of a quote (Shakespeare has just one entry) but one in which to find something refreshing and new. I like the quote from Terry Pratchett that I'd somehow missed before now as a Pterry fan: "Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom."
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
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