' The QI Book of the Dead" is a book about life. What an awful thing life is. It's like soup with lots of hairs floating on the surface. You have to eat it nevertheless'
- Gustave Flaubert. Around 90 billion people have existed since the human race began. From this huge number the bestselling QI team selected 600 of the finest examples of our species & researched them in depth distilling this immense banquet of life into an exquisite tasting menu of six-dozen crisp racy mini-biographies where the internationally & immortally famous rub shoulders with the undeservedly & (until now) permanently obscure. The object is to learn something about what it means to be alive & how we can make the most of the time we have. " The QI Book of the Dead" compares & contrasts the different ways individual human beings cope (or fail to cope) with the curves that the uncaring universe throws at us. Collected into themed chapters with thought-provoking titles such as ' There's Nothing Like a Bad Start in Life' ' Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone' & ' Is That All There Is?' here is a chance to share the secrets of the Dead to celebrate their wisdom to learn from their mistakes & to marvel at their bad taste in clothes. The man who is not dead still has a chance. Lebanese Proverb
- We don't rule out the alternative possibility of a compassionate God whose motives are beyond our ken."