Questions you never thought to have asked

For example, which famous people were expelled from school? What word can be made by rearranging the letters in "Britney Spears"? What is the difference between a gaggle of geese and a skein of geese?

And who the heck is Pete in the expression "for Pete's sake"?

These and hundreds of other questions - many of which you'd probably never ask - are answered with information found in four recent books that entertain as they inform, and would be as welcome on a browser's nightstand as on a researcher's reference shelf.

Those who treasure trivia will find a bumper crop of the stuff in "That Book ... of Perfectly Useless Information" (Morrow, $14.95). Mitchell Symons has filled 372 pages with little-known - perhaps for good reason - facts about birds, insects, animals, the arts, words and people.

For example, who knew that the longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds? Or that no former U.S. president has died in May?

And, one might wonder, which celebrities are allergic to garlic? Drew Barrymore and David Cassidy, to name two.

Speaking of famous people, actress Melissa Joan Hart can recite the mathematical pi to 400 decimal points, and the prolific Isaac Asimov is the only author to have at least one book in every category of the Dewey decimal system.

The "world's funniest joke" is told here, along with the "greatest urban myth." And the record is set straight about rice paper (it's not made from rice), lead pencils (they contain no lead) and koala bears (they aren't bears).