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 Customer Reviews
Disappointing. A very dumbed down edition for children, 31 Oct 2008
I have had several editions of the Guinness World Records over the years and they have generally had a huge amount of content. This edition is much more like children's enclopedia than a serious books of records. There is much less material than normal and what little there is seemed to have been plucked almost at random and is poorly organised.
It may still appeal to children because of the numerous pictues. A few of these are 3D as advertised on the cover, and 3D glasses are included in the book so they can be veiwed.
Sport fans may appreciate the tables of sports records which is the only area where any of the formerly comprehensive coverage remains.
Readers who want a comprehenesive book of records would be much better off with a secondhand copy of an older edition.
The Best yet, 19 Oct 2008
I have collected plenty of copies of GWR but this excels all. The 3-D glasses bring the book to life.
The best gets better every year, 02 Oct 2008
I still buy and read the Guinness Record book every year, because it's become like an old friend that I like to catch up with, but I have to disagree with Birch East. I like the way it has changed and brings out a fresh look each year. The changes, like holograms, 3D whatever, make it fresh every year. My nephews also are big fans of the 3D gimmick.
I do agree with the recommendation for Getting Into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book, the new book by Larry Olmsted about the history and culture of the Guinness World Records book. After reading his review I snapped up a copy and it is great--very entertaining and a fun read! I have read the record book for years but never stopped to wonder where it came from (Guinness Stout of course!), how it got so big, and how large a role it has played in pop culture, and just how crazy some of the record holders seem to be. Getting Into Guinness is the story behind the records and a fun, well researched, adult read.
Always the best, but this year I discovered something that makes it even better, 28 Sep 2008
I first read the Guinness Book of World Records when I was kid back in the 70s, and it's comforting to see it still going strong. I'll say that I definitely preferred the old school text-heavy versions from back in the day to the flourescent lime, 3D photography, picture-fest of today. It's a new world we live in now, so I guess it's hard to fault the Big G for keeping up with the times.
As much as I've long loved the Guinness book itself, I was always a little disappointed that there wasn't a good resource written ABOUT Guinness -- its history, evolution, and especially about how it became the phenomenon that inspires people to carry out such dedicated acts of nuttiness. A few weeks ago in New York, I saw a book profiled in the newspaper titled GETTING INTO GUINNESS by Larry Olmsted. Olmsted is a journalist as well as a two-time GBWR record-holder, and I gave it a try. Well, it's the perfect companion piece to the Guinness book; it puts everything into context and lets you feel like a real insider. 300 pages of fascinating real life stories about the quest for Guinness recordhood, and Amazon has it for under nine pounds. I'll be giving them together as a gift to my nephew. Buy them as a tandem (which is what I should have done) and you'd even get free shipping with Prime! Getting into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book
No wonder this is the world's best selling book!, 23 Sep 2008
After having received Guinness World Records 2009, as a gift, I've realised just how good it is. I was in Tesco a few days ago, and flicked through it then. I thought it was good. But now I own it, it's enabled me to see the extent of just how good it is.
Saying that it's the best edition of Guinness World Records to date, and it is (no worries there), isn't really that much of an achievement. Saying, however, it's the best book I've ever read...the best book ever made...is.
And this is. It's crammed full of amazing achievements, epic engineering, fantastic feats, and much more amazing stuff to feast your eyes on.
Leaving `Ripley's: Believe It Or Not' for dead, GWR really have excelled themselves this time. It really is astonishing.
This year's edition also includes huge, awe-inspiring fold out 3D features, which are apparently obvious when you wear the 3D-glasses that are provided.
It's awesome!
- Revealed: the world's strongest man
- The record-breaking world of Harry Potter
- Inside the Hollywood Hall of Fame
- The top ten videogames of the year
- Face to face with dinosaurs in exciting 3D!
- Plus your favourite records country by country
All this can be found in the spectacular book that is Guinness World Records 2009.
I'd suggest going over to that bookshop, right this second, and buying a copy.
Guaranteed - you won't be disappointed.
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QI: The Book of General Ignorance
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Customer Reviews
Disappointing. A very dumbed down edition for children, 31 Oct 2008
I have had several editions of the Guinness World Records over the years and they have generally had a huge amount of content. This edition is much more like children's enclopedia than a serious books of records. There is much less material than normal and what little there is seemed to have been plucked almost at random and is poorly organised.
It may still appeal to children because of the numerous pictues. A few of these are 3D as advertised on the cover, and 3D glasses are included in the book so they can be veiwed.
Sport fans may appreciate the tables of sports records which is the only area where any of the formerly comprehensive coverage remains.
Readers who want a comprehenesive book of records would be much better off with a secondhand copy of an older edition.
The Best yet, 19 Oct 2008
I have collected plenty of copies of GWR but this excels all. The 3-D glasses bring the book to life.
The best gets better every year, 02 Oct 2008
I still buy and read the Guinness Record book every year, because it's become like an old friend that I like to catch up with, but I have to disagree with Birch East. I like the way it has changed and brings out a fresh look each year. The changes, like holograms, 3D whatever, make it fresh every year. My nephews also are big fans of the 3D gimmick.
I do agree with the recommendation for Getting Into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book, the new book by Larry Olmsted about the history and culture of the Guinness World Records book. After reading his review I snapped up a copy and it is great--very entertaining and a fun read! I have read the record book for years but never stopped to wonder where it came from (Guinness Stout of course!), how it got so big, and how large a role it has played in pop culture, and just how crazy some of the record holders seem to be. Getting Into Guinness is the story behind the records and a fun, well researched, adult read.
Always the best, but this year I discovered something that makes it even better, 28 Sep 2008
I first read the Guinness Book of World Records when I was kid back in the 70s, and it's comforting to see it still going strong. I'll say that I definitely preferred the old school text-heavy versions from back in the day to the flourescent lime, 3D photography, picture-fest of today. It's a new world we live in now, so I guess it's hard to fault the Big G for keeping up with the times.
As much as I've long loved the Guinness book itself, I was always a little disappointed that there wasn't a good resource written ABOUT Guinness -- its history, evolution, and especially about how it became the phenomenon that inspires people to carry out such dedicated acts of nuttiness. A few weeks ago in New York, I saw a book profiled in the newspaper titled GETTING INTO GUINNESS by Larry Olmsted. Olmsted is a journalist as well as a two-time GBWR record-holder, and I gave it a try. Well, it's the perfect companion piece to the Guinness book; it puts everything into context and lets you feel like a real insider. 300 pages of fascinating real life stories about the quest for Guinness recordhood, and Amazon has it for under nine pounds. I'll be giving them together as a gift to my nephew. Buy them as a tandem (which is what I should have done) and you'd even get free shipping with Prime! Getting into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book
No wonder this is the world's best selling book!, 23 Sep 2008
After having received Guinness World Records 2009, as a gift, I've realised just how good it is. I was in Tesco a few days ago, and flicked through it then. I thought it was good. But now I own it, it's enabled me to see the extent of just how good it is.
Saying that it's the best edition of Guinness World Records to date, and it is (no worries there), isn't really that much of an achievement. Saying, however, it's the best book I've ever read...the best book ever made...is.
And this is. It's crammed full of amazing achievements, epic engineering, fantastic feats, and much more amazing stuff to feast your eyes on.
Leaving `Ripley's: Believe It Or Not' for dead, GWR really have excelled themselves this time. It really is astonishing.
This year's edition also includes huge, awe-inspiring fold out 3D features, which are apparently obvious when you wear the 3D-glasses that are provided.
It's awesome!
- Revealed: the world's strongest man
- The record-breaking world of Harry Potter
- Inside the Hollywood Hall of Fame
- The top ten videogames of the year
- Face to face with dinosaurs in exciting 3D!
- Plus your favourite records country by country
All this can be found in the spectacular book that is Guinness World Records 2009.
I'd suggest going over to that bookshop, right this second, and buying a copy.
Guaranteed - you won't be disappointed.
QI , 08 Oct 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book and found it more than "Quite Interesting". Unfortunately though, if you are an avid fan of the television series like I am it offers nothing new. Most, if not all, of the material is taken from the series.
Perfect bedtime reading, 13 Sep 2008
As has been mentioned before, this loose tie-in to the BBC QI programme feels rather like shuffling through a box of randomly shuffled Trivial Pursuit cards and peeking at the (often surprising) answers.
There is a bit more to it than that though. The subjects are grouped together into some approximation of commonality - the animal world, war, inventors, science, colours etc. and each topic does go into some depth about its subject. Often, and most fascinatingly, this includes exploring how myths have grown around the subject.
Many of the facts will surprise you (one of my eye-openers was that the Celtic ethnicity as we understand it today has only existed since 21st June 1792), whereas many will already be widely known (as one of the non-carnivorous persuasion myself, I sincerely hope this book knocks on the head once and for all the calumnious lie that Hitler was a vegetarian!).
The expectation as you turn the page eagerly awaiting the next topic is palpable! I savoured this book by reading just a half dozen or so facts at bedtime and have genuinely found myself adding some snippets of information from this book into my conversations.
Anything that makes us all a tiny bit less generally ignorant can't be bad!
Great fun for trivia nerds, 05 Sep 2008
This is a very entertaining book that you can pick up and browse for short periods. It helps you to challenge all the things that you assume you know. It delights in debunking popular misconceptions - for example that glass is really a very slow-moving liquid. Glass is a solid. At times it is a little precious and pedantic. I am sure that some of its claims can be challenged. However, it remains one of my favourite bedside books. Recommended.
fun but tedious at times, 31 Jul 2008
This is a fun book to pick up and put down at leisure but it loses something for not being delivered by the dry tones of Stephen Fry. If you are an avid watcher of the series you will have heard most of these entries before but there are still some gems among them. Some of the explanations do go on and there seems to be a fascintaion with space that just doesn't excite me but there were a few chuckles along the way. At the end there is a disclaimer inviting readers to send in alternative answers or explanations which does dilute the whole thing a bit. Good for picking up trivia to delight your mates at the pub.
Not entirely fact..., 26 Jun 2008
It's a good book, easy to read, informative and amusing. In fact, it's so informative that one is tempted to learn parts of it as ammunition for showing off how impressively clever you are to your friends; dismissing common knowledge as fiction is a satisfying thing to do. That is, until you come across something that the book claims to be true which you know in fact to be false (or more likely, not the entire truth). And by "know" I mean parts that cross over with my degree and which I have studied actual research journals on. Once I realised that the book takes liberties for the sake of sounding a bit impressive and sensational, I lost faith in pretty much everything else it claimed to be true. I'm sure alot of it is genuine, but how do you know which bits? And if it's not necessarily true, where's the fun in knowing it?
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Customer Reviews
Disappointing. A very dumbed down edition for children, 31 Oct 2008
I have had several editions of the Guinness World Records over the years and they have generally had a huge amount of content. This edition is much more like children's enclopedia than a serious books of records. There is much less material than normal and what little there is seemed to have been plucked almost at random and is poorly organised.
It may still appeal to children because of the numerous pictues. A few of these are 3D as advertised on the cover, and 3D glasses are included in the book so they can be veiwed.
Sport fans may appreciate the tables of sports records which is the only area where any of the formerly comprehensive coverage remains.
Readers who want a comprehenesive book of records would be much better off with a secondhand copy of an older edition.
The Best yet, 19 Oct 2008
I have collected plenty of copies of GWR but this excels all. The 3-D glasses bring the book to life. The best gets better every year, 02 Oct 2008
I still buy and read the Guinness Record book every year, because it's become like an old friend that I like to catch up with, but I have to disagree with Birch East. I like the way it has changed and brings out a fresh look each year. The changes, like holograms, 3D whatever, make it fresh every year. My nephews also are big fans of the 3D gimmick.
I do agree with the recommendation for Getting Into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book, the new book by Larry Olmsted about the history and culture of the Guinness World Records book. After reading his review I snapped up a copy and it is great--very entertaining and a fun read! I have read the record book for years but never stopped to wonder where it came from (Guinness Stout of course!), how it got so big, and how large a role it has played in pop culture, and just how crazy some of the record holders seem to be. Getting Into Guinness is the story behind the records and a fun, well researched, adult read. Always the best, but this year I discovered something that makes it even better, 28 Sep 2008
I first read the Guinness Book of World Records when I was kid back in the 70s, and it's comforting to see it still going strong. I'll say that I definitely preferred the old school text-heavy versions from back in the day to the flourescent lime, 3D photography, picture-fest of today. It's a new world we live in now, so I guess it's hard to fault the Big G for keeping up with the times.
As much as I've long loved the Guinness book itself, I was always a little disappointed that there wasn't a good resource written ABOUT Guinness -- its history, evolution, and especially about how it became the phenomenon that inspires people to carry out such dedicated acts of nuttiness. A few weeks ago in New York, I saw a book profiled in the newspaper titled GETTING INTO GUINNESS by Larry Olmsted. Olmsted is a journalist as well as a two-time GBWR record-holder, and I gave it a try. Well, it's the perfect companion piece to the Guinness book; it puts everything into context and lets you feel like a real insider. 300 pages of fascinating real life stories about the quest for Guinness recordhood, and Amazon has it for under nine pounds. I'll be giving them together as a gift to my nephew. Buy them as a tandem (which is what I should have done) and you'd even get free shipping with Prime! Getting into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book No wonder this is the world's best selling book!, 23 Sep 2008
After having received Guinness World Records 2009, as a gift, I've realised just how good it is. I was in Tesco a few days ago, and flicked through it then. I thought it was good. But now I own it, it's enabled me to see the extent of just how good it is.
Saying that it's the best edition of Guinness World Records to date, and it is (no worries there), isn't really that much of an achievement. Saying, however, it's the best book I've ever read...the best book ever made...is.
And this is. It's crammed full of amazing achievements, epic engineering, fantastic feats, and much more amazing stuff to feast your eyes on.
Leaving `Ripley's: Believe It Or Not' for dead, GWR really have excelled themselves this time. It really is astonishing.
This year's edition also includes huge, awe-inspiring fold out 3D features, which are apparently obvious when you wear the 3D-glasses that are provided.
It's awesome!
- Revealed: the world's strongest man
- The record-breaking world of Harry Potter
- Inside the Hollywood Hall of Fame
- The top ten videogames of the year
- Face to face with dinosaurs in exciting 3D!
- Plus your favourite records country by country
All this can be found in the spectacular book that is Guinness World Records 2009.
I'd suggest going over to that bookshop, right this second, and buying a copy.
Guaranteed - you won't be disappointed.
QI , 08 Oct 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book and found it more than "Quite Interesting". Unfortunately though, if you are an avid fan of the television series like I am it offers nothing new. Most, if not all, of the material is taken from the series. Perfect bedtime reading, 13 Sep 2008
As has been mentioned before, this loose tie-in to the BBC QI programme feels rather like shuffling through a box of randomly shuffled Trivial Pursuit cards and peeking at the (often surprising) answers.
There is a bit more to it than that though. The subjects are grouped together into some approximation of commonality - the animal world, war, inventors, science, colours etc. and each topic does go into some depth about its subject. Often, and most fascinatingly, this includes exploring how myths have grown around the subject.
Many of the facts will surprise you (one of my eye-openers was that the Celtic ethnicity as we understand it today has only existed since 21st June 1792), whereas many will already be widely known (as one of the non-carnivorous persuasion myself, I sincerely hope this book knocks on the head once and for all the calumnious lie that Hitler was a vegetarian!).
The expectation as you turn the page eagerly awaiting the next topic is palpable! I savoured this book by reading just a half dozen or so facts at bedtime and have genuinely found myself adding some snippets of information from this book into my conversations.
Anything that makes us all a tiny bit less generally ignorant can't be bad!
Great fun for trivia nerds, 05 Sep 2008
This is a very entertaining book that you can pick up and browse for short periods. It helps you to challenge all the things that you assume you know. It delights in debunking popular misconceptions - for example that glass is really a very slow-moving liquid. Glass is a solid. At times it is a little precious and pedantic. I am sure that some of its claims can be challenged. However, it remains one of my favourite bedside books. Recommended. fun but tedious at times, 31 Jul 2008
This is a fun book to pick up and put down at leisure but it loses something for not being delivered by the dry tones of Stephen Fry. If you are an avid watcher of the series you will have heard most of these entries before but there are still some gems among them. Some of the explanations do go on and there seems to be a fascintaion with space that just doesn't excite me but there were a few chuckles along the way. At the end there is a disclaimer inviting readers to send in alternative answers or explanations which does dilute the whole thing a bit. Good for picking up trivia to delight your mates at the pub. Not entirely fact..., 26 Jun 2008
It's a good book, easy to read, informative and amusing. In fact, it's so informative that one is tempted to learn parts of it as ammunition for showing off how impressively clever you are to your friends; dismissing common knowledge as fiction is a satisfying thing to do. That is, until you come across something that the book claims to be true which you know in fact to be false (or more likely, not the entire truth). And by "know" I mean parts that cross over with my degree and which I have studied actual research journals on. Once I realised that the book takes liberties for the sake of sounding a bit impressive and sensational, I lost faith in pretty much everything else it claimed to be true. I'm sure alot of it is genuine, but how do you know which bits? And if it's not necessarily true, where's the fun in knowing it? Excellent, 19 Sep 2008
In our house it's called the Great Big Book of Everything. My son is five and we have this book for a couple of years. Thoroughly recommended. Feed Their Minds, 23 Mar 2006
It is amazing just how often we under-estimate the young mind's hunger for knowledge and their ability to understand. My 4 year old son is vey curious about the world around him, everything from planets to electricity. We now read the 'stories'in this book on a daily basis and he always insists on 'just one more'. It is easy to read with complementary graphics and is therefore a great way to introduce them to facts. I would strongly recommend it for parents who find themselves providing information to their children.
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Customer Reviews
Disappointing. A very dumbed down edition for children, 31 Oct 2008
I have had several editions of the Guinness World Records over the years and they have generally had a huge amount of content. This edition is much more like children's enclopedia than a serious books of records. There is much less material than normal and what little there is seemed to have been plucked almost at random and is poorly organised.
It may still appeal to children because of the numerous pictues. A few of these are 3D as advertised on the cover, and 3D glasses are included in the book so they can be veiwed.
Sport fans may appreciate the tables of sports records which is the only area where any of the formerly comprehensive coverage remains.
Readers who want a comprehenesive book of records would be much better off with a secondhand copy of an older edition.
The Best yet, 19 Oct 2008
I have collected plenty of copies of GWR but this excels all. The 3-D glasses bring the book to life. The best gets better every year, 02 Oct 2008
I still buy and read the Guinness Record book every year, because it's become like an old friend that I like to catch up with, but I have to disagree with Birch East. I like the way it has changed and brings out a fresh look each year. The changes, like holograms, 3D whatever, make it fresh every year. My nephews also are big fans of the 3D gimmick.
I do agree with the recommendation for Getting Into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book, the new book by Larry Olmsted about the history and culture of the Guinness World Records book. After reading his review I snapped up a copy and it is great--very entertaining and a fun read! I have read the record book for years but never stopped to wonder where it came from (Guinness Stout of course!), how it got so big, and how large a role it has played in pop culture, and just how crazy some of the record holders seem to be. Getting Into Guinness is the story behind the records and a fun, well researched, adult read. Always the best, but this year I discovered something that makes it even better, 28 Sep 2008
I first read the Guinness Book of World Records when I was kid back in the 70s, and it's comforting to see it still going strong. I'll say that I definitely preferred the old school text-heavy versions from back in the day to the flourescent lime, 3D photography, picture-fest of today. It's a new world we live in now, so I guess it's hard to fault the Big G for keeping up with the times.
As much as I've long loved the Guinness book itself, I was always a little disappointed that there wasn't a good resource written ABOUT Guinness -- its history, evolution, and especially about how it became the phenomenon that inspires people to carry out such dedicated acts of nuttiness. A few weeks ago in New York, I saw a book profiled in the newspaper titled GETTING INTO GUINNESS by Larry Olmsted. Olmsted is a journalist as well as a two-time GBWR record-holder, and I gave it a try. Well, it's the perfect companion piece to the Guinness book; it puts everything into context and lets you feel like a real insider. 300 pages of fascinating real life stories about the quest for Guinness recordhood, and Amazon has it for under nine pounds. I'll be giving them together as a gift to my nephew. Buy them as a tandem (which is what I should have done) and you'd even get free shipping with Prime! Getting into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book No wonder this is the world's best selling book!, 23 Sep 2008
After having received Guinness World Records 2009, as a gift, I've realised just how good it is. I was in Tesco a few days ago, and flicked through it then. I thought it was good. But now I own it, it's enabled me to see the extent of just how good it is.
Saying that it's the best edition of Guinness World Records to date, and it is (no worries there), isn't really that much of an achievement. Saying, however, it's the best book I've ever read...the best book ever made...is.
And this is. It's crammed full of amazing achievements, epic engineering, fantastic feats, and much more amazing stuff to feast your eyes on.
Leaving `Ripley's: Believe It Or Not' for dead, GWR really have excelled themselves this time. It really is astonishing.
This year's edition also includes huge, awe-inspiring fold out 3D features, which are apparently obvious when you wear the 3D-glasses that are provided.
It's awesome!
- Revealed: the world's strongest man
- The record-breaking world of Harry Potter
- Inside the Hollywood Hall of Fame
- The top ten videogames of the year
- Face to face with dinosaurs in exciting 3D!
- Plus your favourite records country by country
All this can be found in the spectacular book that is Guinness World Records 2009.
I'd suggest going over to that bookshop, right this second, and buying a copy.
Guaranteed - you won't be disappointed.
QI , 08 Oct 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book and found it more than "Quite Interesting". Unfortunately though, if you are an avid fan of the television series like I am it offers nothing new. Most, if not all, of the material is taken from the series. Perfect bedtime reading, 13 Sep 2008
As has been mentioned before, this loose tie-in to the BBC QI programme feels rather like shuffling through a box of randomly shuffled Trivial Pursuit cards and peeking at the (often surprising) answers.
There is a bit more to it than that though. The subjects are grouped together into some approximation of commonality - the animal world, war, inventors, science, colours etc. and each topic does go into some depth about its subject. Often, and most fascinatingly, this includes exploring how myths have grown around the subject.
Many of the facts will surprise you (one of my eye-openers was that the Celtic ethnicity as we understand it today has only existed since 21st June 1792), whereas many will already be widely known (as one of the non-carnivorous persuasion myself, I sincerely hope this book knocks on the head once and for all the calumnious lie that Hitler was a vegetarian!).
The expectation as you turn the page eagerly awaiting the next topic is palpable! I savoured this book by reading just a half dozen or so facts at bedtime and have genuinely found myself adding some snippets of information from this book into my conversations.
Anything that makes us all a tiny bit less generally ignorant can't be bad!
Great fun for trivia nerds, 05 Sep 2008
This is a very entertaining book that you can pick up and browse for short periods. It helps you to challenge all the things that you assume you know. It delights in debunking popular misconceptions - for example that glass is really a very slow-moving liquid. Glass is a solid. At times it is a little precious and pedantic. I am sure that some of its claims can be challenged. However, it remains one of my favourite bedside books. Recommended. fun but tedious at times, 31 Jul 2008
This is a fun book to pick up and put down at leisure but it loses something for not being delivered by the dry tones of Stephen Fry. If you are an avid watcher of the series you will have heard most of these entries before but there are still some gems among them. Some of the explanations do go on and there seems to be a fascintaion with space that just doesn't excite me but there were a few chuckles along the way. At the end there is a disclaimer inviting readers to send in alternative answers or explanations which does dilute the whole thing a bit. Good for picking up trivia to delight your mates at the pub. Not entirely fact..., 26 Jun 2008
It's a good book, easy to read, informative and amusing. In fact, it's so informative that one is tempted to learn parts of it as ammunition for showing off how impressively clever you are to your friends; dismissing common knowledge as fiction is a satisfying thing to do. That is, until you come across something that the book claims to be true which you know in fact to be false (or more likely, not the entire truth). And by "know" I mean parts that cross over with my degree and which I have studied actual research journals on. Once I realised that the book takes liberties for the sake of sounding a bit impressive and sensational, I lost faith in pretty much everything else it claimed to be true. I'm sure alot of it is genuine, but how do you know which bits? And if it's not necessarily true, where's the fun in knowing it? Excellent, 19 Sep 2008
In our house it's called the Great Big Book of Everything. My son is five and we have this book for a couple of years. Thoroughly recommended. Feed Their Minds, 23 Mar 2006
It is amazing just how often we under-estimate the young mind's hunger for knowledge and their ability to understand. My 4 year old son is vey curious about the world around him, everything from planets to electricity. We now read the 'stories'in this book on a daily basis and he always insists on 'just one more'. It is easy to read with complementary graphics and is therefore a great way to introduce them to facts. I would strongly recommend it for parents who find themselves providing information to their children.
Interesting, useful and funny, 15 Dec 2007
I'm not a French speaker or learner myself, but bought this as a gift for a friend who is tackling the language. I'm sure they'll enjoy it as it's quite fun compared to the dry language texts I had to wade through at school. It's interesting to see that some French idioms are quite similar to ours but have an unusual slant. For example, where we have 'Pushing up the daisies', they have 'Eating the daisies from the roots up'; we write 'Rubber cheques', and they write 'wooden' ones (like taking a 'wooden nickel'?). Others are quite surreal 'Falling backwards into apples' sound quite painful, but to the French this is a soft landing. Although it's amusing, the text is scholarly enough to be useful to the serious student and the cartoons are excellent. You can't argue with the price either: great value.
101 French Idioms, 03 Jun 2007
I totally agree with the other reviewers (on whose recommendation I bought this book). I am a 'returner' to French, having learned it at school and college, but not having actively used the language for several years. I have also bought another, advanced French course, but wanted something else that would be fun to learn; this is certainly it!
Although it is both funny and witty, it is not only that. As well as a literal and figurative translation, the book gives a typical dialogue of how each idiom may be used. I have already learned some excellent phrases, which should liven up my dialogue when I visit France. I am also thinking of buying a copy for my French friend who's learning English, as it would also be good for a learner from the French person's perspective too. Well done Jean-Marie Cassagne on a first class product. I am now going to purchase the accompanying volume, French Proverbs and hope to enjoy that, too.
Fun and useful!, 15 Mar 2006
I *love* this book. I bought it because of a recommendation by another reader and it's everything they promised. It had me in fits of laughter and I started using the idioms immediately because the pictures and the explanations show you the circumstances where the idiom is appropriate. I surprised the French speakers I know by my sudden use of apt figurative language. It really is fun to be able to use these sayings. The cartoons are amusing and each one is followed by a dialogue where the saying is used so you can see how it will fit into a conversation. I couldn't stop using them but luckily the people I was addressing were tolerant and highly amused. There are 101 idioms with cartoons, followed by a dialogue or a description. At the back are translations of the dialogues and a list of the idioms in alphabetical order and by key images. So, if you know you want to something to do with 'dogs' for example, you can look up dog and find the idioms associated with that image. I can't recommend this highly enough. It helps you practise your French without even realising that's what you are doing. I'm intending to order the proverbs as well! it is a real bargain. It was worth that just for the laughter it brought.
A fun way to improve understanding of the French language, 07 Mar 2001
This book is a fun,entertaining book that helps learners of the language grasp colloquialisms that they wouldn't understand otherwise e.g.-(to fall into apples)means to faint!The idiom is given in a conversation to help understand what context it should be used in and these conversations are translated at the back of the book.But the best thing about this book are the comical drawings that illustrate each idiom.This gives the impression that the book has a more lighthearted approach to understanding and teaching French.A refreshing book for those wanting to speak more like a native or those who just want a more enjoyable way to improve their French.
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Customer Reviews
Disappointing. A very dumbed down edition for children, 31 Oct 2008
I have had several editions of the Guinness World Records over the years and they have generally had a huge amount of content. This edition is much more like children's enclopedia than a serious books of records. There is much less material than normal and what little there is seemed to have been plucked almost at random and is poorly organised.
It may still appeal to children because of the numerous pictues. A few of these are 3D as advertised on the cover, and 3D glasses are included in the book so they can be veiwed.
Sport fans may appreciate the tables of sports records which is the only area where any of the formerly comprehensive coverage remains.
Readers who want a comprehenesive book of records would be much better off with a secondhand copy of an older edition.
The Best yet, 19 Oct 2008
I have collected plenty of copies of GWR but this excels all. The 3-D glasses bring the book to life. The best gets better every year, 02 Oct 2008
I still buy and read the Guinness Record book every year, because it's become like an old friend that I like to catch up with, but I have to disagree with Birch East. I like the way it has changed and brings out a fresh look each year. The changes, like holograms, 3D whatever, make it fresh every year. My nephews also are big fans of the 3D gimmick.
I do agree with the recommendation for Getting Into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book, the new book by Larry Olmsted about the history and culture of the Guinness World Records book. After reading his review I snapped up a copy and it is great--very entertaining and a fun read! I have read the record book for years but never stopped to wonder where it came from (Guinness Stout of course!), how it got so big, and how large a role it has played in pop culture, and just how crazy some of the record holders seem to be. Getting Into Guinness is the story behind the records and a fun, well researched, adult read. Always the best, but this year I discovered something that makes it even better, 28 Sep 2008
I first read the Guinness Book of World Records when I was kid back in the 70s, and it's comforting to see it still going strong. I'll say that I definitely preferred the old school text-heavy versions from back in the day to the flourescent lime, 3D photography, picture-fest of today. It's a new world we live in now, so I guess it's hard to fault the Big G for keeping up with the times.
As much as I've long loved the Guinness book itself, I was always a little disappointed that there wasn't a good resource written ABOUT Guinness -- its history, evolution, and especially about how it became the phenomenon that inspires people to carry out such dedicated acts of nuttiness. A few weeks ago in New York, I saw a book profiled in the newspaper titled GETTING INTO GUINNESS by Larry Olmsted. Olmsted is a journalist as well as a two-time GBWR record-holder, and I gave it a try. Well, it's the perfect companion piece to the Guinness book; it puts everything into context and lets you feel like a real insider. 300 pages of fascinating real life stories about the quest for Guinness recordhood, and Amazon has it for under nine pounds. I'll be giving them together as a gift to my nephew. Buy them as a tandem (which is what I should have done) and you'd even get free shipping with Prime! Getting into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book No wonder this is the world's best selling book!, 23 Sep 2008
After having received Guinness World Records 2009, as a gift, I've realised just how good it is. I was in Tesco a few days ago, and flicked through it then. I thought it was good. But now I own it, it's enabled me to see the extent of just how good it is.
Saying that it's the best edition of Guinness World Records to date, and it is (no worries there), isn't really that much of an achievement. Saying, however, it's the best book I've ever read...the best book ever made...is.
And this is. It's crammed full of amazing achievements, epic engineering, fantastic feats, and much more amazing stuff to feast your eyes on.
Leaving `Ripley's: Believe It Or Not' for dead, GWR really have excelled themselves this time. It really is astonishing.
This year's edition also includes huge, awe-inspiring fold out 3D features, which are apparently obvious when you wear the 3D-glasses that are provided.
It's awesome!
- Revealed: the world's strongest man
- The record-breaking world of Harry Potter
- Inside the Hollywood Hall of Fame
- The top ten videogames of the year
- Face to face with dinosaurs in exciting 3D!
- Plus your favourite records country by country
All this can be found in the spectacular book that is Guinness World Records 2009.
I'd suggest going over to that bookshop, right this second, and buying a copy.
Guaranteed - you won't be disappointed.
QI , 08 Oct 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book and found it more than "Quite Interesting". Unfortunately though, if you are an avid fan of the television series like I am it offers nothing new. Most, if not all, of the material is taken from the series. Perfect bedtime reading, 13 Sep 2008
As has been mentioned before, this loose tie-in to the BBC QI programme feels rather like shuffling through a box of randomly shuffled Trivial Pursuit cards and peeking at the (often surprising) answers.
There is a bit more to it than that though. The subjects are grouped together into some approximation of commonality - the animal world, war, inventors, science, colours etc. and each topic does go into some depth about its subject. Often, and most fascinatingly, this includes exploring how myths have grown around the subject.
Many of the facts will surprise you (one of my eye-openers was that the Celtic ethnicity as we understand it today has only existed since 21st June 1792), whereas many will already be widely known (as one of the non-carnivorous persuasion myself, I sincerely hope this book knocks on the head once and for all the calumnious lie that Hitler was a vegetarian!).
The expectation as you turn the page eagerly awaiting the next topic is palpable! I savoured this book by reading just a half dozen or so facts at bedtime and have genuinely found myself adding some snippets of information from this book into my conversations.
Anything that makes us all a tiny bit less generally ignorant can't be bad!
Great fun for trivia nerds, 05 Sep 2008
This is a very entertaining book that you can pick up and browse for short periods. It helps you to challenge all the things that you assume you know. It delights in debunking popular misconceptions - for example that glass is really a very slow-moving liquid. Glass is a solid. At times it is a little precious and pedantic. I am sure that some of its claims can be challenged. However, it remains one of my favourite bedside books. Recommended. fun but tedious at times, 31 Jul 2008
This is a fun book to pick up and put down at leisure but it loses something for not being delivered by the dry tones of Stephen Fry. If you are an avid watcher of the series you will have heard most of these entries before but there are still some gems among them. Some of the explanations do go on and there seems to be a fascintaion with space that just doesn't excite me but there were a few chuckles along the way. At the end there is a disclaimer inviting readers to send in alternative answers or explanations which does dilute the whole thing a bit. Good for picking up trivia to delight your mates at the pub. Not entirely fact..., 26 Jun 2008
It's a good book, easy to read, informative and amusing. In fact, it's so informative that one is tempted to learn parts of it as ammunition for showing off how impressively clever you are to your friends; dismissing common knowledge as fiction is a satisfying thing to do. That is, until you come across something that the book claims to be true which you know in fact to be false (or more likely, not the entire truth). And by "know" I mean parts that cross over with my degree and which I have studied actual research journals on. Once I realised that the book takes liberties for the sake of sounding a bit impressive and sensational, I lost faith in pretty much everything else it claimed to be true. I'm sure alot of it is genuine, but how do you know which bits? And if it's not necessarily true, where's the fun in knowing it? Excellent, 19 Sep 2008
In our house it's called the Great Big Book of Everything. My son is five and we have this book for a couple of years. Thoroughly recommended. Feed Their Minds, 23 Mar 2006
It is amazing just how often we under-estimate the young mind's hunger for knowledge and their ability to understand. My 4 year old son is vey curious about the world around him, everything from planets to electricity. We now read the 'stories'in this book on a daily basis and he always insists on 'just one more'. It is easy to read with complementary graphics and is therefore a great way to introduce them to facts. I would strongly recommend it for parents who find themselves providing information to their children.
Interesting, useful and funny, 15 Dec 2007
I'm not a French speaker or learner myself, but bought this as a gift for a friend who is tackling the language. I'm sure they'll enjoy it as it's quite fun compared to the dry language texts I had to wade through at school. It's interesting to see that some French idioms are quite similar to ours but have an unusual slant. For example, where we have 'Pushing up the daisies', they have 'Eating the daisies from the roots up'; we write 'Rubber cheques', and they write 'wooden' ones (like taking a 'wooden nickel'?). Others are quite surreal 'Falling backwards into apples' sound quite painful, but to the French this is a soft landing. Although it's amusing, the text is scholarly enough to be useful to the serious student and the cartoons are excellent. You can't argue with the price either: great value.
101 French Idioms, 03 Jun 2007
I totally agree with the other reviewers (on whose recommendation I bought this book). I am a 'returner' to French, having learned it at school and college, but not having actively used the language for several years. I have also bought another, advanced French course, but wanted something else that would be fun to learn; this is certainly it!
Although it is both funny and witty, it is not only that. As well as a literal and figurative translation, the book gives a typical dialogue of how each idiom may be used. I have already learned some excellent phrases, which should liven up my dialogue when I visit France. I am also thinking of buying a copy for my French friend who's learning English, as it would also be good for a learner from the French person's perspective too. Well done Jean-Marie Cassagne on a first class product. I am now going to purchase the accompanying volume, French Proverbs and hope to enjoy that, too.
Fun and useful!, 15 Mar 2006
I *love* this book. I bought it because of a recommendation by another reader and it's everything they promised. It had me in fits of laughter and I started using the idioms immediately because the pictures and the explanations show you the circumstances where the idiom is appropriate. I surprised the French speakers I know by my sudden use of apt figurative language. It really is fun to be able to use these sayings. The cartoons are amusing and each one is followed by a dialogue where the saying is used so you can see how it will fit into a conversation. I couldn't stop using them but luckily the people I was addressing were tolerant and highly amused. There are 101 idioms with cartoons, followed by a dialogue or a description. At the back are translations of the dialogues and a list of the idioms in alphabetical order and by key images. So, if you know you want to something to do with 'dogs' for example, you can look up dog and find the idioms associated with that image. I can't recommend this highly enough. It helps you practise your French without even realising that's what you are doing. I'm intending to order the proverbs as well! it is a real bargain. It was worth that just for the laughter it brought.
A fun way to improve understanding of the French language, 07 Mar 2001
This book is a fun,entertaining book that helps learners of the language grasp colloquialisms that they wouldn't understand otherwise e.g.-(to fall into apples)means to faint!The idiom is given in a conversation to help understand what context it should be used in and these conversations are translated at the back of the book.But the best thing about this book are the comical drawings that illustrate each idiom.This gives the impression that the book has a more lighthearted approach to understanding and teaching French.A refreshing book for those wanting to speak more like a native or those who just want a more enjoyable way to improve their French.
Perceptive,interesting - and not too high-brow, 29 Oct 2008
Manages to add something to your appreciation of films you know and intrigue your interest in films you don't. Best of all, it's not too intellectual or cinephile in its tone. Like a partisan version (and a good companion piece) to "1001 Films To See Before You Die"
"One has to do something", 22 Oct 2008
I havent read this from cover to cover, but i've been dipping in for the past three weeks (which i think is the best way to read it). So far it seems like a companion piece to The Biographical Dictionary of Film, another essential book by Thomson.
Everytime i read a new entry i just get goosebumps, hes so passionate, so dissillusioned (thats not spelt right..), so intelligent, that i struggle to understand how such a person can be alive in our time. Or rather, i get so much from his books, that my standards for film/art criticism/writing have been raised, and nearly everybody else falls short.
Buy it, or get your library to. (also, if you have the money and the inclination, get Rosebud, The Whole Equation, and The Biographical Dictionary of Film too.)
seems as if tony floyd has it about right, 19 Oct 2008
l haven't read the book (yet!) but have just read a review in the Telegraph by one of its film critics Jenny McCartney, whose review is along the same lines. Thanks Mr Floyd; I shall be ordering this book for sure.
Robert Mitchum's knuckles, 03 Oct 2008
"Early on as I watched films and tried to read about them, I found that I valued broad comments on the medium...more than intense and reverend scrutiny of particular films composed by critics who treated a Nicholas Ray film as if it might have been a sculpture by Bernini, or Hamlet."
How odd that in the month that Sight and Sound (in its Who Needs Critics issue) includes this comment from David Thomson, his new book is published, a book that consists of "a personal introduction to 1,000 films" or in other words a not quite reverend but certainly intense scrutiny of particular films.
Having made that snidey point, what does the book do and who is it for? Well, each of Thomson's chosen films has one page to itself and approximately 500 words, but no pictures. The period covered is 1895 to 2007. Even though limited to fiction films (with some borderline exceptions like Man With A Movie Camera, F For Fake) the range covered is tremendous. There are intriguing and bizarre juxtapositions, quality rubs up against trash (but not too much of the latter), Tom and Jerry appear between films by two Jacques (Becker and Tourneur), one could go on and on. It's perfect for dipping into and skimming over, though one's eyes are caught by titles and phrases so you keep stopping to read that or this entry; there are great opening lines, to hook you: "Eddie Constantine was forty-eight in 1965, but he looks like a thousand-year-old lizard in Alphaville"; "The starting point of The Lavender Hill Mob is when a man who wears a bowler hat meets a fellow given to bow ties."; "Has anybody made a voluntary decision to see Heston's Ben-Hur in recent years?". As to who it's for, I'd say the knowledgeable and curious cineaste or buff and not your regular multiplex popcorn munching Vin Diesel connoisseur (though a Vin Diesel film is in here, or rather a film with Vin Diesel in it).
However as a born quibbler of course I have reservations, concerns and criticisms. To state my view clearly: I love this book but David Thomson drives me to distraction.
I have often wondered why Thomson has devoted the majority of his writing career to cinema when it increasingly seems to cause him so much distress - about its worthiness to be taken seriously at all, about its infantilisation, its obsession with CGI spectacle, etc. All of his criticisms are true - to an extent. We acknowledge, and by we I mean the sort of person likely to buy and read this book, that movies are created by committee, diluted by collaboration, blunted by compromise, emasculated by censorship, crippled by hypocrisy, tainted by commercialism but despite these restrictions and sometimes because of them, movies do get made that can be called masterpieces, or great, or minor triumphs or that are just worthy of our time and attention.
This dismay with the state and status of film feeds into Thomsons'other recurring concern that watching films, studying them, talking about them and so on takes up precious time that could be devoted to other less demeaning pursuits. He suggests that the failure of many modern films is that they are made by and for people who know too much about movies and not enough about life. This attitude is often viewed as one of his strengths: the following ridiculous comment exemplifies this (in an overall excellent review of Thomson's The Whole Equation): "It is the work of a man who has read novels, listened to Mahler, fathered children and so while knowing perfectly well ...just how big cinema is, never loses sight of the fact that there are still-biggger things in the world." I like the implication that reading books and raising family are exotic achievements available only to a few rarefied individuals - or are they just unusual for film fans. Well, I have done all those things too and I would beg to disagree with the original assumption that devotion to and passion for something (be it film, skiing, butterflies, astrophysics) means that it is exclusive or results in one being diverted from an engagement with the real world. It is usually quite the opposite, I would suggest (though I appreciate certain hobbies are often used as a refuge from it). Stupid people - like fans of The Sound of Music for example (this is Thomson's opinion, by the way) - are usually uninterested in anything. The truth is surely that for the committed, engaged, intelligent viewer cinema feeds into other passions, and informs and stimulates and is enhanced by other interests that are pursued elsewhere. In the real world even.
Thomson's reputation is that he is the most insightful, illuminating and provocative writer on film today. The sort of writer you read not necessarily because of his subject matter but because of his prose style, so suggestive, allusive, nuanced that it enters the realm of literature. Well, I do enjoy reading his books, a particular favourite is Rosebud, about Orson Welles (though I am not remotely convinced by the portrait of Welles that it paints), and there is also the unavoidable and highly regarded Biographical Dictionary of Film. But I also find his style stern, gnomish, aggravating, pretentious. It's often so circumlocutory, so hesitant, so couched in broad strokes and `poetic' generalisations that you finish reading and wonder, does he like the film or not, is this a recommendation or a kicking? I offer as examples: "And it's only when peril gets neurotic, and comic, that people start to smoke". What people? Real people? Movie characters? It's nonsense, David. On Hollywood's vaguely liberal Democrat voting persuasion: "But the allegiance is so unreliable when the custard philosophy is hiding or denying the real muscular differences and antagonisms of politics." (Forrest Gump). Or this "Lang's method was always to stage every event as if he were quoting it from the scrapbook of dream images - what I mean by that is that the brilliant compositions always underline themselves; they are in italic, and thus a touch suspect, more haunting than reliable." (Woman in the Window). If you unpick these sentences you are (or more precisely, I am) not really any wiser than I was before I read them. There's plenty of this sort of stuff here, as there is in all his books (at least the ones I've read) so that one has to embark on a sifting exercise to pan for meaning in the same way Bogart, Huston and Holt do for nuggets of gold in the Sierra Madre. Compare such passages with V F Perkins book on The Magnificent Ambersons in the BFI Classics series (in my view the greatest `intense and reverend scrutiny'of a single film available). Next to Perkin's limpid and precise approach Thomson's prose is often like lumpy mist, heavy and yet insubstantial. An unfair comparison perhaps as Thomson has jut 500 words on many films and Perkins several thousand on just the one, but I maintain my core point about Thomson's fuzziness.
OK, that's enough carping, let's skip to the positive stuff. Firstly Thomson isn't Barry Norman, that is to say he doesn't peddle consenus views of what the great films are or why they are interesting, he doesn't resort to the tired recycling of critical orthodoxy, nor the dreary plot synopses that plague many books on film. His approach is fresh and unawed and both visceral and intellectual. There is the awareness of how one's response to films and cinema is fluid and shifting both over time (see his entry on Paris Texas) and also during the actual viewing of any individual film (see his entry on Broadway Melody of 1940). He notes that some films are worth recalling in total whereas others are precious for one particular scene or performance or a fleeting mood; in our digital age we can choose to watch favourite sequences without having to sit through the whole film, even make the equivalent of movie `mix tapes'. He knows that our response is also shaped by the circumstances in which we watched it, and by our interest and knowledge (or lack of these) of other films of the same genre or director or studio. One of the key points Thomson makes is the factor of chance and serendipity in the making of movies, the many variables at play, the dropping out or unavailability of a particular director or writer or star allowing someone else to step into the breach changing the course of the project from the moon to the stars, or from the stars into the gutter. This is where Thomson is at his most persuasive and is the practical result of his stated area of interest, i.e. in how and why films are made rather than whether individual films are good or bad.
Finally then, Thomson's wayward, disgruntled, wistful and sniffy judgements are not for your average multiplex audience. This book, like his others, is indeed provocative and aggravating. I am sure I will return to it again and again, as I do to the Dictionary and Rosebud. And it will be in the same way and for the same reasons that I go back to those other books; they insist that I sharpen my own views and attitudes. And, if you've made it this far and are asking if this review is a recommendation or a warning, it is the former; I do think it is a wonderful book, rich and fascinating and challenging and revealing and of course it prompts and nudges you to see or re-view many many films including those you would normally avoid. But it is also exasperating, infuriating and sometimes plain incomprehensible. It comes with a health warning: Addictive (and slamming it shut in consternation may not necessarily help).
(Incidentally I hope that Amazon will allow the indulgence of this lengthy review - my original version was twice as long, a reflection I guess of just how provoking Thomson is.)
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Customer Reviews
Disappointing. A very dumbed down edition for children, 31 Oct 2008
I have had several editions of the Guinness World Records over the years and they have generally had a huge amount of content. This edition is much more like children's enclopedia than a serious books of records. There is much less material than normal and what little there is seemed to have been plucked almost at random and is poorly organised.
It may still appeal to children because of the numerous pictues. A few of these are 3D as advertised on the cover, and 3D glasses are included in the book so they can be veiwed.
Sport fans may appreciate the tables of sports records which is the only area where any of the formerly comprehensive coverage remains.
Readers who want a comprehenesive book of records would be much better off with a secondhand copy of an older edition.
The Best yet, 19 Oct 2008
I have collected plenty of copies of GWR but this excels all. The 3-D glasses bring the book to life. The best gets better every year, 02 Oct 2008
I still buy and read the Guinness Record book every year, because it's become like an old friend that I like to catch up with, but I have to disagree with Birch East. I like the way it has changed and brings out a fresh look each year. The changes, like holograms, 3D whatever, make it fresh every year. My nephews also are big fans of the 3D gimmick.
I do agree with the recommendation for Getting Into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book, the new book by Larry Olmsted about the history and culture of the Guinness World Records book. After reading his review I snapped up a copy and it is great--very entertaining and a fun read! I have read the record book for years but never stopped to wonder where it came from (Guinness Stout of course!), how it got so big, and how large a role it has played in pop culture, and just how crazy some of the record holders seem to be. Getting Into Guinness is the story behind the records and a fun, well researched, adult read. Always the best, but this year I discovered something that makes it even better, 28 Sep 2008
I first read the Guinness Book of World Records when I was kid back in the 70s, and it's comforting to see it still going strong. I'll say that I definitely preferred the old school text-heavy versions from back in the day to the flourescent lime, 3D photography, picture-fest of today. It's a new world we live in now, so I guess it's hard to fault the Big G for keeping up with the times.
As much as I've long loved the Guinness book itself, I was always a little disappointed that there wasn't a good resource written ABOUT Guinness -- its history, evolution, and especially about how it became the phenomenon that inspires people to carry out such dedicated acts of nuttiness. A few weeks ago in New York, I saw a book profiled in the newspaper titled GETTING INTO GUINNESS by Larry Olmsted. Olmsted is a journalist as well as a two-time GBWR record-holder, and I gave it a try. Well, it's the perfect companion piece to the Guinness book; it puts everything into context and lets you feel like a real insider. 300 pages of fascinating real life stories about the quest for Guinness recordhood, and Amazon has it for under nine pounds. I'll be giving them together as a gift to my nephew. Buy them as a tandem (which is what I should have done) and you'd even get free shipping with Prime! Getting into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book No wonder this is the world's best selling book!, 23 Sep 2008
After having received Guinness World Records 2009, as a gift, I've realised just how good it is. I was in Tesco a few days ago, and flicked through it then. I thought it was good. But now I own it, it's enabled me to see the extent of just how good it is.
Saying that it's the best edition of Guinness World Records to date, and it is (no worries there), isn't really that much of an achievement. Saying, however, it's the best book I've ever read...the best book ever made...is.
And this is. It's crammed full of amazing achievements, epic engineering, fantastic feats, and much more amazing stuff to feast your eyes on.
Leaving `Ripley's: Believe It Or Not' for dead, GWR really have excelled themselves this time. It really is astonishing.
This year's edition also includes huge, awe-inspiring fold out 3D features, which are apparently obvious when you wear the 3D-glasses that are provided.
It's awesome!
- Revealed: the world's strongest man
- The record-breaking world of Harry Potter
- Inside the Hollywood Hall of Fame
- The top ten videogames of the year
- Face to face with dinosaurs in exciting 3D!
- Plus your favourite records country by country
All this can be found in the spectacular book that is Guinness World Records 2009.
I'd suggest going over to that bookshop, right this second, and buying a copy.
Guaranteed - you won't be disappointed.
QI , 08 Oct 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book and found it more than "Quite Interesting". Unfortunately though, if you are an avid fan of the television series like I am it offers nothing new. Most, if not all, of the material is taken from the series. Perfect bedtime reading, 13 Sep 2008
As has been mentioned before, this loose tie-in to the BBC QI programme feels rather like shuffling through a box of randomly shuffled Trivial Pursuit cards and peeking at the (often surprising) answers.
There is a bit more to it than that though. The subjects are grouped together into some approximation of commonality - the animal world, war, inventors, science, colours etc. and each topic does go into some depth about its subject. Often, and most fascinatingly, this includes exploring how myths have grown around the subject.
Many of the facts will surprise you (one of my eye-openers was that the Celtic ethnicity as we understand it today has only existed since 21st June 1792), whereas many will already be widely known (as one of the non-carnivorous persuasion myself, I sincerely hope this book knocks on the head once and for all the calumnious lie that Hitler was a vegetarian!).
The expectation as you turn the page eagerly awaiting the next topic is palpable! I savoured this book by reading just a half dozen or so facts at bedtime and have genuinely found myself adding some snippets of information from this book into my conversations.
Anything that makes us all a tiny bit less generally ignorant can't be bad!
Great fun for trivia nerds, 05 Sep 2008
This is a very entertaining book that you can pick up and browse for short periods. It helps you to challenge all the things that you assume you know. It delights in debunking popular misconceptions - for example that glass is really a very slow-moving liquid. Glass is a solid. At times it is a little precious and pedantic. I am sure that some of its claims can be challenged. However, it remains one of my favourite bedside books. Recommended. fun but tedious at times, 31 Jul 2008
This is a fun book to pick up and put down at leisure but it loses something for not being delivered by the dry tones of Stephen Fry. If you are an avid watcher of the series you will have heard most of these entries before but there are still some gems among them. Some of the explanations do go on and there seems to be a fascintaion with space that just doesn't excite me but there were a few chuckles along the way. At the end there is a disclaimer inviting readers to send in alternative answers or explanations which does dilute the whole thing a bit. Good for picking up trivia to delight your mates at the pub. Not entirely fact..., 26 Jun 2008
It's a good book, easy to read, informative and amusing. In fact, it's so informative that one is tempted to learn parts of it as ammunition for showing off how impressively clever you are to your friends; dismissing common knowledge as fiction is a satisfying thing to do. That is, until you come across something that the book claims to be true which you know in fact to be false (or more likely, not the entire truth). And by "know" I mean parts that cross over with my degree and which I have studied actual research journals on. Once I realised that the book takes liberties for the sake of sounding a bit impressive and sensational, I lost faith in pretty much everything else it claimed to be true. I'm sure alot of it is genuine, but how do you know which bits? And if it's not necessarily true, where's the fun in knowing it? Excellent, 19 Sep 2008
In our house it's called the Great Big Book of Everything. My son is five and we have this book for a couple of years. Thoroughly recommended. Feed Their Minds, 23 Mar 2006
It is amazing just how often we under-estimate the young mind's hunger for knowledge and their ability to understand. My 4 year old son is vey curious about the world around him, everything from planets to electricity. We now read the 'stories'in this book on a daily basis and he always insists on 'just one more'. It is easy to read with complementary graphics and is therefore a great way to introduce them to facts. I would strongly recommend it for parents who find themselves providing information to their children.
Interesting, useful and funny, 15 Dec 2007
I'm not a French speaker or learner myself, but bought this as a gift for a friend who is tackling the language. I'm sure they'll enjoy it as it's quite fun compared to the dry language texts I had to wade through at school. It's interesting to see that some French idioms are quite similar to ours but have an unusual slant. For example, where we have 'Pushing up the daisies', they have 'Eating the daisies from the roots up'; we write 'Rubber cheques', and they write 'wooden' ones (like taking a 'wooden nickel'?). Others are quite surreal 'Falling backwards into apples' sound quite painful, but to the French this is a soft landing. Although it's amusing, the text is scholarly enough to be useful to the serious student and the cartoons are excellent. You can't argue with the price either: great value.
101 French Idioms, 03 Jun 2007
I totally agree with the other reviewers (on whose recommendation I bought this book). I am a 'returner' to French, having learned it at school and college, but not having actively used the language for several years. I have also bought another, advanced French course, but wanted something else that would be fun to learn; this is certainly it!
Although it is both funny and witty, it is not only that. As well as a literal and figurative translation, the book gives a typical dialogue of how each idiom may be used. I have already learned some excellent phrases, which should liven up my dialogue when I visit France. I am also thinking of buying a copy for my French friend who's learning English, as it would also be good for a learner from the French person's perspective too. Well done Jean-Marie Cassagne on a first class product. I am now going to purchase the accompanying volume, French Proverbs and hope to enjoy that, too.
Fun and useful!, 15 Mar 2006
I *love* this book. I bought it because of a recommendation by another reader and it's everything they promised. It had me in fits of laughter and I started using the idioms immediately because the pictures and the explanations show you the circumstances where the idiom is appropriate. I surprised the French speakers I know by my sudden use of apt figurative language. It really is fun to be able to use these sayings. The cartoons are amusing and each one is followed by a dialogue where the saying is used so you can see how it will fit into a conversation. I couldn't stop using them but luckily the people I was addressing were tolerant and highly amused. There are 101 idioms with cartoons, followed by a dialogue or a description. At the back are translations of the dialogues and a list of the idioms in alphabetical order and by key images. So, if you know you want to something to do with 'dogs' for example, you can look up dog and find the idioms associated with that image. I can't recommend this highly enough. It helps you practise your French without even realising that's what you are doing. I'm intending to order the proverbs as well! it is a real bargain. It was worth that just for the laughter it brought.
A fun way to improve understanding of the French language, 07 Mar 2001
This book is a fun,entertaining book that helps learners of the language grasp colloquialisms that they wouldn't understand otherwise e.g.-(to fall into apples)means to faint!The idiom is given in a conversation to help understand what context it should be used in and these conversations are translated at the back of the book.But the best thing about this book are the comical drawings that illustrate each idiom.This gives the impression that the book has a more lighthearted approach to understanding and teaching French.A refreshing book for those wanting to speak more like a native or those who just want a more enjoyable way to improve their French.
Perceptive,interesting - and not too high-brow, 29 Oct 2008
Manages to add something to your appreciation of films you know and intrigue your interest in films you don't. Best of all, it's not too intellectual or cinephile in its tone. Like a partisan version (and a good companion piece) to "1001 Films To See Before You Die"
"One has to do something", 22 Oct 2008
I havent read this from cover to cover, but i've been dipping in for the past three weeks (which i think is the best way to read it). So far it seems like a companion piece to The Biographical Dictionary of Film, another essential book by Thomson.
Everytime i read a new entry i just get goosebumps, hes so passionate, so dissillusioned (thats not spelt right..), so intelligent, that i struggle to understand how such a person can be alive in our time. Or rather, i get so much from his books, that my standards for film/art criticism/writing have been raised, and nearly everybody else falls short.
Buy it, or get your library to. (also, if you have the money and the inclination, get Rosebud, The Whole Equation, and The Biographical Dictionary of Film too.)
seems as if tony floyd has it about right, 19 Oct 2008
l haven't read the book (yet!) but have just read a review in the Telegraph by one of its film critics Jenny McCartney, whose review is along the same lines. Thanks Mr Floyd; I shall be ordering this book for sure.
Robert Mitchum's knuckles, 03 Oct 2008
"Early on as I watched films and tried to read about them, I found that I valued broad comments on the medium...more than intense and reverend scrutiny of particular films composed by critics who treated a Nicholas Ray film as if it might have been a sculpture by Bernini, or Hamlet."
How odd that in the month that Sight and Sound (in its Who Needs Critics issue) includes this comment from David Thomson, his new book is published, a book that consists of "a personal introduction to 1,000 films" or in other words a not quite reverend but certainly intense scrutiny of particular films.
Having made that snidey point, what does the book do and who is it for? Well, each of Thomson's chosen films has one page to itself and approximately 500 words, but no pictures. The period covered is 1895 to 2007. Even though limited to fiction films (with some borderline exceptions like Man With A Movie Camera, F For Fake) the range covered is tremendous. There are intriguing and bizarre juxtapositions, quality rubs up against trash (but not too much of the latter), Tom and Jerry appear between films by two Jacques (Becker and Tourneur), one could go on and on. It's perfect for dipping into and skimming over, though one's eyes are caught by titles and phrases so you keep stopping to read that or this entry; there are great opening lines, to hook you: "Eddie Constantine was forty-eight in 1965, but he looks like a thousand-year-old lizard in Alphaville"; "The starting point of The Lavender Hill Mob is when a man who wears a bowler hat meets a fellow given to bow ties."; "Has anybody made a voluntary decision to see Heston's Ben-Hur in recent years?". As to who it's for, I'd say the knowledgeable and curious cineaste or buff and not your regular multiplex popcorn munching Vin Diesel connoisseur (though a Vin Diesel film is in here, or rather a film with Vin Diesel in it).
However as a born quibbler of course I have reservations, concerns and criticisms. To state my view clearly: I love this book but David Thomson drives me to distraction.
I have often wondered why Thomson has devoted the majority of his writing career to cinema when it increasingly seems to cause him so much distress - about its worthiness to be taken seriously at all, about its infantilisation, its obsession with CGI spectacle, etc. All of his criticisms are true - to an extent. We acknowledge, and by we I mean the sort of person likely to buy and read this book, that movies are created by committee, diluted by collaboration, blunted by compromise, emasculated by censorship, crippled by hypocrisy, tainted by commercialism but despite these restrictions and sometimes because of them, movies do get made that can be called masterpieces, or great, or minor triumphs or that are just worthy of our time and attention.
This dismay with the state and status of film feeds into Thomsons'other recurring concern that watching films, studying them, talking about them and so on takes up precious time that could be devoted to other less demeaning pursuits. He suggests that the failure of many modern films is that they are made by and for people who know too much about movies and not enough about life. This attitude is often viewed as one of his strengths: the following ridiculous comment exemplifies this (in an overall excellent review of Thomson's The Whole Equation): "It is the work of a man who has read novels, listened to Mahler, fathered children and so while knowing perfectly well ...just how big cinema is, never loses sight of the fact that there are still-biggger things in the world." I like the implication that reading books and raising family are exotic achievements available only to a few rarefied individuals - or are they just unusual for film fans. Well, I have done all those things too and I would beg to disagree with the original assumption that devotion to and passion for something (be it film, skiing, butterflies, astrophysics) means that it is exclusive or results in one being diverted from an engagement with the real world. It is usually quite the opposite, I would suggest (though I appreciate certain hobbies are often used as a refuge from it). Stupid people - like fans of The Sound of Music for example (this is Thomson's opinion, by the way) - are usually uninterested in anything. The truth is surely that for the committed, engaged, intelligent viewer cinema feeds into other passions, and informs and stimulates and is enhanced by other interests that are pursued elsewhere. In the real world even.
Thomson's reputation is that he is the most insightful, illuminating and provocative writer on film today. The sort of writer you read not necessarily because of his subject matter but because of his prose style, so suggestive, allusive, nuanced that it enters the realm of literature. Well, I do enjoy reading his books, a particular favourite is Rosebud, about Orson Welles (though I am not remotely convinced by the portrait of Welles that it paints), and there is also the unavoidable and highly regarded Biographical Dictionary of Film. But I also find his style stern, gnomish, aggravating, pretentious. It's often so circumlocutory, so hesitant, so couched in broad strokes and `poetic' generalisations that you finish reading and wonder, does he like the film or not, is this a recommendation or a kicking? I offer as examples: "And it's only when peril gets neurotic, and comic, that people start to smoke". What people? Real people? Movie characters? It's nonsense, David. On Hollywood's vaguely liberal Democrat voting persuasion: "But the allegiance is so unreliable when the custard philosophy is hiding or denying the real muscular differences and antagonisms of politics." (Forrest Gump). Or this "Lang's method was always to stage every event as if he were quoting it from the scrapbook of dream images - what I mean by that is that the brilliant compositions always underline themselves; they are in italic, and thus a touch suspect, more haunting than reliable." (Woman in the Window). If you unpick these sentences you are (or more precisely, I am) not really any wiser than I was before I read them. There's plenty of this sort of stuff here, as there is in all his books (at least the ones I've read) so that one has to embark on a sifting exercise to pan for meaning in the same way Bogart, Huston and Holt do for nuggets of gold in the Sierra Madre. Compare such passages with V F Perkins book on The Magnificent Ambersons in the BFI Classics series (in my view the greatest `intense and reverend scrutiny'of a single film available). Next to Perkin's limpid and precise approach Thomson's prose is often like lumpy mist, heavy and yet insubstantial. An unfair comparison perhaps as Thomson has jut 500 words on many films and Perkins several thousand on just the one, but I maintain my core point about Thomson's fuzziness.
OK, that's enough carping, let's skip to the positive stuff. Firstly Thomson isn't Barry Norman, that is to say he doesn't peddle consenus views of what the great films are or why they are interesting, he doesn't resort to the tired recycling of critical orthodoxy, nor the dreary plot synopses that plague many books on film. His approach is fresh and unawed and both visceral and intellectual. There is the awareness of how one's response to films and cinema is fluid and shifting both over time (see his entry on Paris Texas) and also during the actual viewing of any individual film (see his entry on Broadway Melody of 1940). He notes that some films are worth recalling in total whereas others are precious for one particular scene or performance or a fleeting mood; in our digital age we can choose to watch favourite sequences without having to sit through the whole film, even make the equivalent of movie `mix tapes'. He knows that our response is also shaped by the circumstances in which we watched it, and by our interest and knowledge (or lack of these) of other films of the same genre or director or studio. One of the key points Thomson makes is the factor of chance and serendipity in the making of movies, the many variables at play, the dropping out or unavailability of a particular director or writer or star allowing someone else to step into the breach changing the course of the project from the moon to the stars, or from the stars into the gutter. This is where Thomson is at his most persuasive and is the practical result of his stated area of interest, i.e. in how and why films are made rather than whether individual films are good or bad.
Finally then, Thomson's wayward, disgruntled, wistful and sniffy judgements are not for your average multiplex audience. This book, like his others, is indeed provocative and aggravating. I am sure I will return to it again and again, as I do to the Dictionary and Rosebud. And it will be in the same way and for the same reasons that I go back to those other books; they insist that I sharpen my own views and attitudes. And, if you've made it this far and are asking if this review is a recommendation or a warning, it is the former; I do think it is a wonderful book, rich and fascinating and challenging and revealing and of course it prompts and nudges you to see or re-view many many films including those you would normally avoid. But it is also exasperating, infuriating and sometimes plain incomprehensible. It comes with a health warning: Addictive (and slamming it shut in consternation may not necessarily help).
(Incidentally I hope that Amazon will allow the indulgence of this lengthy review - my original version was twice as long, a reflection I guess of just how provoking Thomson is.)
It's all wrong, I tell you, 15 Apr 2008
The thesis of this book is that much of our `common sense' knowledge is made up of micro-myths, and most of these myths are mistaken. This is quite radical, if you think of it. If so much of the trivia of everyday knowledge is wrong, how much else of what we know for true is false? Maybe that's the appeal of such books, and this is a particularly good one with lots of random factoids I'd never read before, presented in a racy, engaging style. On the other hand it may all be a sad lad obsession (all the authors are male), appealing to the inner Mr Logic in us blokes. Chicken Tikka Massala was invented in Glasgow, Nelson never wore an eye-patch, we are only 60 miles from outer space (upwards), why biros are called bics in France...as my girlfriend kept saying when I informed her of such gems, "Sorry, why would I want to know that?"
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QI: The Book of Animal Ignorance
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Customer Reviews
Disappointing. A very dumbed down edition for children, 31 Oct 2008
I have had several editions of the Guinness World Records over the years and they have generally had a huge amount of content. This edition is much more like children's enclopedia than a serious books of records. There is much less material than normal and what little there is seemed to have been plucked almost at random and is poorly organised.
It may still appeal to children because of the numerous pictues. A few of these are 3D as advertised on the cover, and 3D glasses are included in the book so they can be veiwed.
Sport fans may appreciate the tables of sports records which is the only area where any of the formerly comprehensive coverage remains.
Readers who want a comprehenesive book of records would be much better off with a secondhand copy of an older edition.
The Best yet, 19 Oct 2008
I have collected plenty of copies of GWR but this excels all. The 3-D glasses bring the book to life.
The best gets better every year, 02 Oct 2008
I still buy and read the Guinness Record book every year, because it's become like an old friend that I like to catch up with, but I have to disagree with Birch East. I like the way it has changed and brings out a fresh look each year. The changes, like holograms, 3D whatever, make it fresh every year. My nephews also are big fans of the 3D gimmick.
I do agree with the recommendation for Getting Into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book, the new book by Larry Olmsted about the history and culture of the Guinness World Records book. After reading his review I snapped up a copy and it is great--very entertaining and a fun read! I have read the record book for years but never stopped to wonder where it came from (Guinness Stout of course!), how it got so big, and how large a role it has played in pop culture, and just how crazy some of the record holders seem to be. Getting Into Guinness is the story behind the records and a fun, well researched, adult read.
Always the best, but this year I discovered something that makes it even better, 28 Sep 2008
I first read the Guinness Book of World Records when I was kid back in the 70s, and it's comforting to see it still going strong. I'll say that I definitely preferred the old school text-heavy versions from back in the day to the flourescent lime, 3D photography, picture-fest of today. It's a new world we live in now, so I guess it's hard to fault the Big G for keeping up with the times.
As much as I've long loved the Guinness book itself, I was always a little disappointed that there wasn't a good resource written ABOUT Guinness -- its history, evolution, and especially about how it became the phenomenon that inspires people to carry out such dedicated acts of nuttiness. A few weeks ago in New York, I saw a book profiled in the newspaper titled GETTING INTO GUINNESS by Larry Olmsted. Olmsted is a journalist as well as a two-time GBWR record-holder, and I gave it a try. Well, it's the perfect companion piece to the Guinness book; it puts everything into context and lets you feel like a real insider. 300 pages of fascinating real life stories about the quest for Guinness recordhood, and Amazon has it for under nine pounds. I'll be giving them together as a gift to my nephew. Buy them as a tandem (which is what I should have done) and you'd even get free shipping with Prime! Getting into Guinness: One Man's Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World's Most Famous Record Book
No wonder this is the world's best selling book!, 23 Sep 2008
After having received Guinness World Records 2009, as a gift, I've realised just how good it is. I was in Tesco a few days ago, and flicked through it then. I thought it was good. But now I own it, it's enabled me to see the extent of just how good it is.
Saying that it's the best edition of Guinness World Records to date, and it is (no worries there), isn't really that much of an achievement. Saying, however, it's the best book I've ever read...the best book ever made...is.
And this is. It's crammed full of amazing achievements, epic engineering, fantastic feats, and much more amazing stuff to feast your eyes on.
Leaving `Ripley's: Believe It Or Not' for dead, GWR really have excelled themselves this time. It really is astonishing.
This year's edition also includes huge, awe-inspiring fold out 3D features, which are apparently obvious when you wear the 3D-glasses that are provided.
It's awesome!
- Revealed: the world's strongest man
- The record-breaking world of Harry Potter
- Inside the Hollywood Hall of Fame
- The top ten videogames of the year
- Face to face with dinosaurs in exciting 3D!
- Plus your favourite records country by country
All this can be found in the spectacular book that is Guinness World Records 2009.
I'd suggest going over to that bookshop, right this second, and buying a copy.
Guaranteed - you won't be disappointed.
QI , 08 Oct 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book and found it more than "Quite Interesting". Unfortunately though, if you are an avid fan of the television series like I am it offers nothing new. Most, if not all, of the material is taken from the series.
Perfect bedtime reading, 13 Sep 2008
As has been mentioned before, this loose tie-in to the BBC QI programme feels rather like shuffling through a box | | |