Phenomena - Camille Juzeau and the Shelf Studio ****

I am always a bit suspicious of books that are highly illustrated or claim to cover 'almost everything' - and in one sense this is clearly hyperbole. But I enjoyed Phenomena far more than I thought I would. The idea is to cover 125 topics with infographics. On the internet these tend to be long pages with lots of numbers and supposedly interesting factoids. Thankfully, here the term is used in a more eclectic fashion.

Each topic gets a large (circa A4) page (a few get two) with a couple of paragraphs of text and a chunky graphic. Sometimes these do consist of many small parts - for example 'the limits of the human body' features nine graphs - three on sporting achievements, three on biometrics (e.g. height by date of birth) and three rather random items (GNP per person, agricultural yields of various crops and consumption of coal). Others have a single illustration, such as a map of the sewers of Paris. (Because, why wouldn't you want to see that?)

Just those two samples are a good illustration of how quite interesting (in the QI sense), and frankly random, the contents are. Opening the book at random, I come across information on whistled languages (no, me neither), the opiate trade, Bliss symbols (a graphic-based constructed language from the 1940s), atmospheres of the solar system and the Venus fly trap.

Obviously a book like this lacks any sense of narrative - it's a collection of visually presented factoids. But the compilers manage to keep the surprises coming and the experience of flicking through is distinctly entertaining. There used to be quite a market in books to be kept by the toilet for a brief consultation while otherwise engaged. Apart from its weight, Phenomena would do well in that setting - but it will also appeal to those for whom the whole business of discovering weird and wonderful knowledge about the world is engrossing.

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