Previously published as EVERYTHING TO PLAY FOR: THE QI BOOK OF SPORTSSHORTLISTED FOR THE CHARLES TYRWHITT SPORTS BOOK AWARDS'Top Bins! A personal best, a lap record and a hole in one for when rain has stopped play.' ALAN DAVIES'The trivia book of the season . . . magnificent.' SPECTATORHop, skip and jump into this wonderfully curious grand tour of the world of sports, brought to you by QI Elves James Harkin and Anna Ptaszynski.From sport's weirdest rules to its most unlikely heroes, via comically large cricket bats, pole-vaulting priests, creative football chants and exploding billiard balls, each chapter of A Load of Old Balls is brimming with surprising facts and intriguing stories.Even if you've never asked yourself what David Attenborough has to do with yellow tennis balls, why Victorian doctors feared the outbreak of'bicycle face' or what led ancient Egyptian athletes to have their spleens removed, this book will give you the astonishing answers - and plenty more besides.**For more from the team behind QI's hit TV show, check out the QI FACTS series of books, @qikipedia, their weekly podcast at nosuchthingasafish.com or visit qi.com.

Anna Ptaszynski and James Harkin are senior researchers, writers and script-editors for the BBC's QI, and two-fourths of the award-winning podcast No Such Thing As A Fish. Between them, they have authored 13 books with the QI Elves and toured sell-out shows across the world, from the London Palladium to the Sydney Opera House.They are, respectively, long suffering fans of Charlton Athletic and Jacksonville Jaguars.