MARK MASON
After several years at the BBC, where he produced programmes for Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live, Mark Mason left to become a full-time writer. His novels garnered praise such as ‘Mason’s natural voice is that of “everybloke” – the Nick Hornby of Fever Pitch or the John O’Farrell of The Best A Man Can Get’.
His non-fiction includes the Bluffer’s Guide to Bond and the Bluffer’s Guide to Football, as well as The Importance of Being Trivial, a look at why we’re fascinated with trivia. It was lauded by reviewers as diverse as The Guardian (‘an irresistibly hapless charm’), Richard and Judy (‘I loved the book’) and Popular Science (‘works like the best of such titles, taking us on a personal excursion ... it’s an explanation of fundamental human behaviour’).
Mason has written for most national newspapers, as well as magazines from The Spectator to Four Four Two via Glamour. He has also addressed the nation on many radio and TV networks, occasionally on subjects he knows something about.
For more information visit www.theimportanceofbeingtrivial.com
LATEST BOOK: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING TRIVIAL
If you're not remotely interested in the fact that Pete Conrad was the first man to fall over on the moon or that the stretch of road between the Strand and the Savoy is the only public highway in Britain where you are legally obliged to drive on the right, then The Importance of Being Trivial is definitely not for you. If on the other hand you're intrigued by these pearls of information - and more importantly, intrigued by why you're intrigued by them - then Mark Mason's book will be required reading. An exploration of why little facts hold such a big fascination (interviews with the likes of John Sessions), it examines what our love of trivia says about us. The book touches on subjects as diverse as autism and the history of science, and features contributions from medical experts such as Simon Baron-Cohen. Mason sets out to discover the perfect fact - but along the way he learns how memory works, why Einstein and Picasso had more in common than you'd think, and - in asking why trivia is such a male pursuit - he uncovers fundamental truths about how men and women relate to each other.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Importance of Being Trivial: In Search of the Perfect Fact; Random House, 2008, The Bluffer’s Guide to Bond; Oval Books, 2006, The C Words; Time Warner, 2005, The Catch; Time Warner, 2004, What Men Think About Sex; Time Warner, 2002, The Bluffer’s Guide to Football; Oval Books, 2001.
