Cunctator: how old are you? When did you get your 1st GBOWR?
I read the Guinness Book as a child in the 1970s. They were all hardback editions. And so was the edition I flipped through a few years ago that I mentioned in my earlier post.
I didn’t know that it came in a paperback version.
The one I recall from my childhood was a very large, very dense paperback from the late 70s or early 80s. I would spend a lot of time randomly flipping through it.
I also was very disappointed to see it change.
Same here. I remember them looking like this. I think most kids bought them through the Scholastic book club.
That’s just it. I never knew that I would be interested in the “last public guillotining” in France, or the deadliest Thug, until I stumbled across them by random in the Guinness book.
Sometimes I wonder how we re-create that experience electronically. I’m not sure I know.
Freddy-Wiki walking.
There are various “fact of the day” sites like damn interesting that you could subscribe to their email newsletter.
I too vividly remember the two dudes on motorcycles. It’s sorta a cultural icon. The Simpsons had those two riding their motorcycles through a store in one episode.
When I was a kid it had things like the tallest man, or the fastest car. Some of the records I see now are a joke. I’m totally serious when I say that some guy set a record for the most squat thrusts on top of an elephant.
I started getting them mid-70s and never knew there was anything but the paperback version.
This thread finally made me break down and take a look. The big thick paperback version of our youth (I still have the 93 version at my mom’s house) is still being produced: http://www.amazon.com/Guinness-World-Records-Craig-Glenday/dp/0553390554
It doesn’t look like it’s exactly the same. But the inside view looks a lot more like the Guinness I remember than the big hardcovers that I’ve flipped through most recently.
Another vote of sad nostalgic regret for the marvel that was the 1970s paperback edition.
I liked the scientific precision – how everything was given with its proper name; like the statue of Crazy Horse, which gives his Sioux name.
I particularly loved the page that listed calamities by type, in descending order of casualties. Starting with Worst Plague (Black Death, 13th century, millions & millions dead) down through Worst Mountaineering Accident and Most Eaten by Crocodiles.
OK, I was a tad morbid as a lad. 
IIRC, I had 1980 and '84 editions, both paperbacks.
FWIU, the Internet put the Guinness Records Company in danger of going under so they had to find a way to expand their appeal. They did so by aiming the book at Millennials.
Ditto, must be Australian versions. I had 1975, 77, 79, 82 and (a hopeless) 2001, all hardbacks. Gave them all to my 7yo great-nephew just a couple of weeks ago.
Or it may have been a Commonwealth/US thing.
I liked the hardback editions. They carried a certain ‘gravitas’ which you don’t get from a paperback.
Saw today that the Who were the loudest band as of the '70s.
Libraries carried Guinness in the hardback version. In the reference section. That’s how you knew it was a serious grownup tome.
Yup.
I owned multiple Guiness Books as a child (editions from 1971 to 1984, mostly paperback) and it was great to compare versions to see what records were surpassed and what content was changed. And also just to randomly look through the book and wonder about the backstories. Why on earth did a “religious dentist” save the two million teeth he’d extracted? (For that matter, how do you get a job as a religious dentist?) Why does sand yatchting exist? Why did two guys in Kiev have a face slapping contest in 1931–and settle for a draw after 31 hours?
A bit belated, but thanks for finding this. I’m putting the 2015 version on my Christmas wish list, hopefully it’s the similar denser format than the abomination versions.