You can be an expert in anything so long as you make it up. That’s the lesson that John Hodgman taught us with his first book, “The Areas of My Expertise,” and it’s the lesson behind his new book, a sequel to the 2005 fake almanac that put him on the map.

“More Information Than You Require” (Dutton, $25.00) picks up where “Areas …” left off, literally: It starts on page 237 and goes forward from there. If you’re familiar with the “Guinness Book of World Records,” the “Book of Lists” series, or other tomes of trivia from the past, you’ll recognize the set-up right away. Hodgman presents various facts on all sorts of odd historical facts, such as the impact of mole-men on the shaping of the Declaration of Independence or the long-standing war between submarines and zeppelins. You start to wonder why your own knowledge of such history is lacking, and it’s simple: He made it up, all of it, the entire book.

That’s not to say that you can’t learn anything from a book of fake trivia; just don’t expect to go on Jeopardy! after reading it and pull a Ken Jennings. Hodgman’s book won’t be any use to you there.

Hodgman, a former literary agent and “famous minor television personality,” is familiar to most people as one of the stars of the “Mac vs. PC” commercials or as the resident “expert” on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” His true calling, though, seems to be as chronicler of bogus history, such as recording the various names that hoboes use. “More Info …” continues the mission that Hodgman embarked on with his previous book, and it happens to be very funny while doing so. Let’s see a book of authentic trivia tell you how to become famous or which hermit crabs to bet on in a race.

Not everything works, however; the seemingly endless “mole-man names” list stretches a perfectly good premise to the breaking point and beyond, while some bits don’t quite work as well as others. But the layout of the book allows for some random “facts” to be highlighted about a particular date, many of which are hilarious (the dates involving mysterious rains in various locales lead to the obvious joke about the Weathergirl’s one-hit wonder “It’s Raining Men” at the very end of the book). There were plenty of times during the course of reading the book that I had to stop to breathe, because I was laughing so hard. That hadn’t happened to me since I read “Angela’s Ashes.”

Hodgman has earned my respect and envy, because I feel like he beat me to the idea of doing books of fake trivia long before I even had the idea of writing one. There are plans for another volume to complete the trilogy of fake trivia (because all great works have to have three parts, as “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” fans will tell you), but “More Information Than You Require” is the perfect stocking stuffer for the holiday season. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn how to tell the future using a pig’s spleen, and most of all you’ll forget how bad the economy is right now. Because there’s nothing fake about that.