I missed the Wallace-Wallechinsky reference in this thread, but let me recommend the People's Almanac, in three volumes if you can find them. Great subversive history and oddball trivia--I mined them deeply for anecdotes to entertain my undermotivated high school history students. Not everyone can read arbitrarily chosen trivia for long periods, but I'm one of them. The Uncle John's Reader and bathroom series deal with similar matters in shorter soundbytes. Both combine outrageousness and humor.