Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #160536 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Fascinating, as ever
It must be getting increasingly harder for those wonderful people at Guinness to churn out the goods each year, especially following their 50th anniversary edition for 2005. I am delighted to say, however, that this year's paving slab of facts, figures and photos is just as absorbing as its predecessors.

Stuffed into this 2006 edition are the usual hundreds of new records and pictures, most of which are inspiring and interesting (though perhaps not "Most hot dogs eaten in three minutes", etc). Also featured here are numerous small interviews with record holders, and I am pleased to see that this trait has been continued from the previous edition as it provides a little variety to the endless lists of records packed onto every page. Not that the titanic amount of information included in this book is a bad thing, of course; Guinness have clearly attempted to outdo themselves by creating even more new record categories, such as digital music, and an extended sports reference section at the back, always worthy of worship from an avid sports fan like myself.

Another welcome addition to this year's book is that we are informed of whether a certain record is new or has been recently broken, by means of red and yellow stars beside these records respectively. Again, this is an interesting way to ensure that record fans will continue to buy these fantastic books, instead of tiring with the customary record-listing format. The final new aspects to this edition are the larger than life pull-out sections dedicated to pets, colossal structures, the X-Games, body modification... all of which are particularly informative as, for example, many of the world's smallest pets are pictured at actual size!

In short, Guinness World Records 2006 is an amazing mine of information for fans of the world in general and its people.

An essential reference tool.
Whilst some readers will always buy the latest edition of this book because they are interested in the largest, tallest, fastest or whatever, personally I have always found this book to be a first class reference source.

It was from the Guinness Book of records that I learned that the largest Turtle known to man was a giant Leatherback Turtle which (to my great surprise) was washed up on the shores of Ireland - and "not" some Caribbean country as one might expect.

Of course, not all the records are repeated from one edition into the next or each book would be identical except for any new records achieved during the past 12 months. For this reason, the reader might need to collect a few editions of the book in order to have as good a collection of records as possible.

Just a few loose thoughts really.

NM