Books like Hoax by Ian Tattersall

Bill Bryson turns the universe into a conversational guide, tracing science from the Big Bang through evolution, geology, chemistry, astronomy, and particle physics with humor and clarity.

Provenance follows the real‑life art fraud of John Drewe, who forged historic paintings with the help of artist John Myatt and then deceived the British art world into accepting the fakes as genuine, reshaping museum collections and the record of modern art.

"Award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon--the legacy of P.T. Barnum's 'humbug' culminating with the currency of Donald J. Trump's 'fake news'. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, with race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington, and 'What Is It?', an African American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing link in evolution. Bunk then turns to the hoaxing of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native Americans like Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity theft of Rachel Dolezal. This brilliant and timely work asks what it means to live in a post-factual world of 'truthiness' where everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art."--Dust jacket flap.

A collection of obscure historical trivia.

The ultimate reader's-guide to the works that fooled publishers, readers, and critics the world over--from Dionysius the Renegade to modern publishing pranks such as the Hitler Diaries.