Just the FactsbyLaine Farley Facts on File, Trivial Pursuit, factoids, true or false, FAQs. From news to games to cocktail conversation, we are obsessed with quick quips and diversionary details. Bookmarks are convenient purveyors of succinct snippets and terse trivia. Although publishers commonly use bookmarks to promote books, they don’t always use the small space wisely to attract attention and interest in the book. For encyclopedias, almanacs and biographical dictionaries it would seem natural to pose interesting questions or unusual facts that could be found in the featured volumes. Yet many bookmarks for these publications use the standard format of book covers with facts only about the book itself such as ISBN, price and number of pages, publisher information, and occasionally a few quotes from reviews. Out of 23 bookmarks advertising encyclopedias in my collection, only three feature facts; similarly, three out of 20 bookmarks on biographies provide factoids.  A few bookmarks illustrate creative uses of questions and facts to attract the natural curiosity of children and adults as a technique to promote their books via bookmarks. Appealing to children’s questioning of everything in their world is easy as demonstrated by Lerner Publications with two of their series. For “History Maker Bios,” the bookmark features six true or false questions about historical figures such as famous Native American leaders. Answers on the back provide more details including the source of Geronimo’s name, giving both his Apache name and the origin of his popular name. For their “Just the Facts Biographies,” the publisher poses six descriptions of individuals with their names on the reverse. The facts are a combination of well-known and obscure information so that you think you know the answer but are intrigued by the new detail. For example, the author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is easy but did you know he was almost eaten by his neighbor’s monkey as a baby, or that one of America’s founding fathers who started the first library also established the first fire department in North America?  The bookmark advertising Everything Bug, one in a series by NorthWord Books, attracts attention with the large illustrations of beetles, butterflies, praying mantises and other crawlies. The list of “Did you know . . .” facts on the reverse gives a sample of what you might find in the book and certainly the prospect of learning that the “bolas spider lassoes its food like a cowboy” or that many people eat bugs as a source of protein might rope you into checking out the book itself.  Another series of bookmarks with strong graphics has the tag line “That’s a fact from World Almanac.” Each one features several related facts on the Pledge of Allegiance, languages, or speed of animals. Two other bookmarks for almanacs decline to provide facts although surely the Texas Almanac could surface a number of outsized oddities.  Designed to appeal to both children and adults is a bookmark with a striking photograph of a panda in the crook of a tree with snow in the background. The reverse lists a number of “panda facts” revealing that the panda is a herbivore but has the digestive system of a carnivore. Will the book tell us more about this odd detail? 
The granddaddy of all trivia and fact books has to be Ben Schott’s series of “Miscellany” books. The publisher, Bloomsbury, wins the award for best factoid bookmark appropriate for the book. One side features facts from Schott’s Original Miscellany ranging from the routine with a list of birthstones and Morse code to the creepy with the origin of “Deadman’s Hand,” a list of terms for murders of various types and information on famous castrati. The reverse offers tips and trivia from Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany such as the favorite ice cream of the Bushes and Cheneys, what befell the children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and various practices used by restaurants to avoid having the unlucky number of thirteen diners at a table.
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