InfoSnacks

There’s one kind of reading that everybody loves: Infosnacks. Juicy, crispy, salty little morsels of information that you can pop into your brain, insume instantly, and get an immediate rush of quasi-educational delight.

Like this: One out of every 17 novels purchased in the US since 2006 has been a James Patterson title.

Whole meals can be constructed of infosnacks. Freakonomics, for example. Most of Gladwell. (Infosnacks may very well be wrong, but that rarely gets in the way of enjoying them.)

Here’s another one: On average, the physical production, shipping, and storage of a book only account for 10% of a publisher’s total book production costs.

Almost any infosnack is tasty, but the most scrumptious ones are counterintuitive. The exact opposite of what you thought! The grey cells wriggle with oxymoronic delight.

One more: Women tend to be shorter than men because 90% of pheromones are exuded through their hair, so women who are shorter exude directly into men's noses, and are thus more likely to be naturally selected for matehood.

Now you’d better go watch a video, for a change of pace.