Wendell Jamieson wants answers. Long before he became a New York Times editor, he was a precocious child who peppered his father with mind-bogglers like "Why is the highway so loud?" and "What are testicles?"

When he entered the realm of fatherhood, he passed that inquisitive gene to his son, Dean, who wondered, "Why do ships have round windows?" and "What would hurt more: getting run over by a car or getting stung by a jellyfish?" Not content to brush these queries off or fire away fictitious responses (as his own father often did), he sought serious answers from the proper authorities.

Publishing the findings in the Times opened another Pandora's Box: "By the time I got to my phone in the morning, I had 11 calls from publishers and agents, saying, 'You've got a book there!'" And Father Knows Less Or: Can I Cook My Sister? was born.

With Father's Day on the horizon, Forbes chatted with Jamieson about Yoko Ono, divorce and the father of all roles for Steve Martin.

The questions in Father Knows Less run the gamut from why policemen like doughnuts to what happens when someone is hanged in a noose.  What were some of the questions that were omitted and why?

I only did questions that had a real-world answer. For example, I had "Is Tweety Bird a boy or a girl?" or "Why can't I go to Hogwarts?" [Harry Potter's school] which were based on fictional things. There's really no answer to those. I only wanted the true, scientific, cultural, historic, linguistic response. I also stayed away from religion because that's an endless discussion: "Is God a boy or a girl?"

When asked why the Beatles broke up, you sought out Yoko Ono.

I found very quickly that the best answers came from people who knew them inherently, because it was part of their life. And no matter how wacky the question, there is someone out there who knows the answer. So who best to answer why the Beatles broke up than the very person who was, unfairly or not, blamed for the actual breaking up of the Beatles? Who best to explain why a ship is called a "she" than the captain of the Queen Mary? When you get to question like "Does the Mona Lisa wear shoes?" it's a little hard to find someone walking around in medieval garb. But they do exist, so I found a medieval re-enactor who explained what type of footwear someone wore around that time. It's one of the last questions in the book, and it's one of my favorites.

How did you track down Yoko?

She's not in the phone book, but she’s a public person and is easy to find. I sent a type-written letter to her assistant because apparently Yoko will only deal with contacts in written letters. A few weeks later, I got an e-mail response - so she’ll respond in e-mail - "Yoko Ono will answer your question." You know her as an artist to be quite a minimalist, and she was a minimalist in her answer.

After years of increasingly loud fights, your parents divorced when you were 10. How did that shape your views of fatherhood and marriage?

I try not to fight in front of the children, but I am sure that we'd try to do that no matter what. Certainly, I got married later than my parents. My wife [author Helene Stapinski] and I spent many years together before we got married. I suppose it's partially a response to the mistakes my parents made.

Over the years, you've written essays about the dark side of It's a Wonderful Life, which became the most e-mailed article from the New York Times website shortly after it was released, possible pairings of drinks and movies and watching horror flicks with Dean. Can you recommend a movie about fatherhood?

Parenthood with Steve Martin gets it pretty well. Steve Martin is not even a parent, but he does a great job of reflecting the stresses and joys.