<DIV><a href="http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/guest-author/curious-world-drugs-and-their-friends- adriano-sack-and-ingo-niermann" class="bookcopy"><b>Read Adriano Sack's posts on the Penguin Blog.</i></b><BR><BR> <B>“Curiouser and curiouser” —fun and fascinating facts from the world of drugs.</B><BR><BR> Following in the tradition of <I>The Ultimate Book of Useless Information</I>, <I>The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends</I> is a wry potpourri of interesting information about every conceivable kind of drug. Readers can feed their heads with anecdotes, facts, lists, statistics, and illustrations, including:<BR><BR> • The test results of animals on LSD—cats lose their fear of dogs, and goats walk in geometric patterns<BR> • Drugs found in nature, from magic mushrooms to St. John's wort to beaver secretions<BR> • Celebrities who overdosed at age 27—Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, and Jean Michel-Basquiat<BR> • Imaginary drugs in literature and film, from spice the mélange in <I>Dune</I> to Moloko plus in <I>A Clockwork Orange</I><BR> • Nicknames for a joint—from doobie to giggly stick to Mr. Boom Bizzle<BR> • The global percentages of adults who have used cannabis—.004 percent in Singapore and 12.6 percent in the United States<BR> • The uses of opium in ancient Rome—from treatments for insomnia and epilepsy to colic and deafness<BR> • The most glamorous rehab clinics and their celebrity alumni<BR> • Mini-biographies of the biggest drug kingpins around the world<BR><BR> Wacky but well-researched, unbiased and shameless, <I>The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends</I> dares to take readers on a long, strange trivia trip.<BR><BR> </div>