New Scientist's brilliant million-selling Christmas book comes of age, exploring everything from the science of bubbles to whether cats are better than dogs

Ten years ago Does Anything Eat Wasps stormed the charts, selling over 450,000 copies and became a global phenomenon. The New Scientist titles have continued to be an annual fixture ever since -- the thinking person's Christmas present of choice -- and have now been translated into over 30 languages. They still sell at least 40,000 copies every year but it's time for a revamp.

How Long is Now will combine the light-hearted silliness of the early books with the more grown-up approach of the more recent books, but now with an extra dash of cool xkcd humour. The short answer to the question is three seconds but the longer answer will make you look at the world in a completely different way. This book will tackle a series of fascinating questions that make your brain hurt -- such as how do you know you exist? What is at the edge of the universe? and even how much does a kilo weigh. As with QI, the simplest answer is not the right one. We have a great opportunity to grow our existing market here.

If you´re one of those people (and I am) who often find yourself wondering about the "whys" and "whats" of random phenomena for no apparent reason, your hopes have been answered. How Long is Now? is the book I didn´t know I needed until I read it - with the answers I didn´t know I craved until I had them. It´s funny and endlessly fascinating. I have one question left: when´s the follow-up coming out? I´m sure to have many queries saved up