… that when Don Cherry was brought in as a guest commentator on Hockey Night in Canada, he was rejected by CBC executives for his poor grammar?
—Wayne Gretzky’s Ghost: And Other Tales from a Lifetime in Hockey by Roy MacGregor

Excerpt from Wayne Gretzky’s Ghost:

When the stumbling Colorado Rockies fired him, Cherry stumbled into a new career when Molson Breweries began lining him up for banquets. He was a hit and soon Ralph Mellanby, who was then producing Hockey Night in Canada, began bringing Cherry on between periods to comment and entertain. The fans instantly fell in love, but Cherry was not an easy sell in the corporate offices of the CBC, where the new commentator was instantly under fire for his characteristic mangling of the English language. Read more.

Want to read the first chapter of Wayne Gretzky’s Ghost? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

… that Michael Bublé’s first foray into music was learning to sing his home address as a young child? His father thought it would help him to remember it.
—Onstage Offstage: The Official Illustrated Memoir by Michael Bublé

Excerpt from Onstage Offstage:

It all began when I was a little kid, when I learned my family’s address. My father taught me to sing it, because he knew that by singing it, I’d remember it. I’ll never forget the little tune I composed to sing those four numbers and the name of the quiet street where I grew up in Burnaby, British Columbia. That little song was my first foray into music, and it came to me as naturally as shooting a hockey puck. Read more.

Want to read the first chapter of Onstage Offstage? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

… that bicycling around her neighbourhood, Jann Arden discovered at an early age how long a pet turtle would survive inside her pocket?
—Falling Backwards: A Memoir by Jann Arden

Excerpt from Falling Backwards:

When we weren’t colouring or playing John and Jane West, Gary and I rode our tricycles around and around and around the block. (At this point we hadn’t clued in to the fact that riding bikes was exercise, and that we would one day hate every second of cardiovascular activity.) I knew where every crack was in every single inch of sidewalk. I knew where every kid lived and what their names were and what kind of swing set they had in their backyard. I knew what cars would be parked in the front driveways and when they came and went. My neighbourhood was mapped out in my heart and I never wanted anything about it to change. Read more.

Want to read the first chapter of Falling Backwards? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

… that the ten-year period beginning in 2001 was the warmest since the beginning of instrumental records?
—Fools Rule: Inside the Failed Politics of Climate Change by William Marsden

Excerpt from Fools Rule:

These atmospheric GHG increases corresponded with a record global mean temperature increase in 2010, which, according to the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization, was one of the three warmest years recorded since 1850. The ten-year period beginning in 2001 was the warmest since the beginning of instrumental records. The decade was about half a degree Celsius higher than the annual average between 1961 and 1990, which is an extraordinary hike. Corresponding to this temperature rise were record numbers of extreme weather events. Read more.

Want to read the first chapter of Fools Rule? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

… in his early days of winemaking and shameless self-promotion, Wolf Blass would have himself paged over airport intercoms so the duty-free stores would hear the name?
—Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines by Natalie MacLean

Excerpt from Unquenchable:

“In those days, I did it all: I made the wine, I sold the wine,” he says, as we look at a photo of Wolf in his early twenties, with a slicked-back ducktail haircut, sitting on the hood of a convertible. He became known as much for the way he sold his wine as for the way he made it. At baseball games, for instance, he’d chat with the television cameramen, telling them he’d be in the crowd with his winery sign. Every time they focused on the sign, there was a case of wine for them. Read more.

Want to read the first chapter of Unquenchable? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

… that the practice of serving different courses one at a time rather than all at once arrived in French restaurants in the 1790s and was called “Russian Service”?
—The Table Comes First: Family, France and the Meaning of Food by Adam Gopnik

Excerpt from The Table Comes First:

Another change that the new restaurants imposed in the 1790s was the abandonment of French or banquet service for what the French themselves called Russian service, which is just what we today think gives order to a meal: instead of a lot of dishes placed nobly on a table with servants to serve them — Carême’s idea of dinner — dishes would come one after another, in an order chosen by the host and his chef. The loss in architectural splendor and arrangement of the kind Carême made great was compensated for by a gain in freedom: once every diner was brought his own dish, soon every diner could choose his own dish. Read more.

Want to read the first chapter of The Table Comes First? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

… that the Montreal Mafia Rizzuto family were hired by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos to recover gold bullion that the dictator had stashed in Swiss bank accounts?
—Mafia Inc.: The Long, Bloody Reign of Canada’s Sicilian Clan by André Cédilot and André Noël

Excerpt from Mafia Inc.:

Another thread picked up by police during surveillance as part of Operation Compote led to one of the most improbable tales ever to involve the Montreal Mafia: the Rizzutos had, apparently, been tasked with the mission of recovering a fortune in gold bullion stashed in Swiss bank safes by the deposed—and by then deceased—Philippine dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. Read more.

Want to read the first chapter of Mafia Inc.? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

… that Jeannette Winterson applied to Oxford because it was the most impossible thing she could do?
—Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

Excerpt from Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?:

I decided to apply to read English at the University of Oxford because it was the most impossible thing I could do. I knew no one who had been to university and although clever girls were encouraged to go to teacher training college, or to take their accountancy exams, Oxford and Cambridge were not on the list of things to do before you die. The Equal Pay Act had become law in Britain in 1970, but no woman I knew got anything like equal pay — or believed that she should. Read more.

Want to read the first chapter of Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

… that according to trauma survivor lore when you lose a spouse at least five things break right away?
—Through the Glass by Shannon Moroney

Excerpt from Through the Glass:

I sat back feeling completely overwhelmed. I didn’t know where to start. Then the phone rang—it was a friend’s mother, Pam, who had been widowed in her thirties. She asked, “Have things started breaking yet?” She explained that when you lose your spouse at least five things break right away. It was an insider tip from the trauma club. I glanced at the last five things I’d just added to my list. Read more.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.