The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2013 really deserves more than five TMV stars. Way before the era of computers, and the Internet and smart phones, the good, old, big, fat Almanac was THE THING you needed on your desk to quickly find facts — facts, perfectly distilled, perfectly checked out, and easy to find within seconds because they are impeccably indexed. As a kid, being a show biz buff, I was especially interested in the birth dates and deaths of actors and comedians. And the sections on history.
The VERY good news is this: the World Almanac is back again as it is each year, and it’s better than ever. And the VERY VERY GOOD NEWS is this: it really doesn’t take you that much longer to use it than do a computer search, and in many cases its much quicker. And if you don’t like to read books on cut down trees? You can now get it in a well-formatted Kindle edition, a hugely valuable addition to the Kindle of any student, blogger, journalist or political activist (even though some political activists really don’t care all that much about facts). As usual, the new edition contains a few color sections: of maps, news photos and portraits of famous people who departed the earth in 2012.
There used to be many brands of almanacs over the years and today The World Almanac only has one big competitor. You name it, it’s in this book: 2012 election results. A list of major actions of Congress (yes there is a list, believe it or not), “Words and Expressions in Common Languages” table, data on the 2012 Olympics, historical figures, diseases such as HIV, detailed statistics about employment, chronology of U.S. history “Road Mileage Between Selected U.S. Cities” table and much much MUCH more.
As someone who does this blog, writes a Cagle Column and also contributes to The Week Online, I now keep this almanac on my desk. I may go on the road soon for a few weeks (or more) and will likely get the Kindle edition.
The good thing about The World Almanac is that you don’t have to throw it out as soon as it hits a new year. You can use it for a few more months but will always want to get the latest edition, since they keep changing it — always for the better.
So, yes, computers are nice, and Google and Yahoo is fast, but you’d be surprised how easy and super-fast it is to get info out of The World Almanac.
And here’s another little secret: it’s FUN to read so you’ll probably want to keep it by your bedside (or in the bathroom on the throne). Over the years many writers, editors and scholars have called the Almanac their key source for fast facts. The 2013 edition keeps the tradition alive — and then some.
On a scale of one to five stars we give this five stars — and strongly suggest those with Kindles get it and keep it for constant, quick reference.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.