America’s only self-declared emperor, the "old soldier" who wouldn’t die, the greatest carpetbagger

these are just a few of the fanciful real-life characters profiled in this inexhaustible trivia book. The author covers a happily wide range of subjects, from "the greatest slot machine cheat" who defied odds of 230,000 to 1, to the comic confusion of "US" with "Uncle Sam", to the "American town names to give you the creepy crawlies" like Black Gnat, Kentucky. Meticulously fact-checked, this book brings the minutiae of a culture and country into sharp focus. The perfect road-trip companion, Everything You Didn''t Need to Know About the USA is crammed with weird and wacky facts about every state in the union.