The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2010

by World Almanac

Book Overview

The World Almanac is the #1 best-selling American reference book of all time. It isthesource for essential and authoritative facts for entertainment, reference and learning. The book contains... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1600571239
• ISBN13: 9781600571237
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: World Almanac Books
• Length: 1008 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A fine Almanac

Totally invaluable! I can't hazard a guess at how many times I go to one or other of my library of past and present World Almanacs. All intelligent and thinking people should own this wonderful annual.

The standard in almanacs

There are many imitators on the market, some of them quite good, but this almanac has set the standard for more than a century. The New York World newspaper began publishing an almanac in 1868, "a 120-page volume with 12 pages of advertising." The newspaper suspended the almanac's publication in 1876, but publisher Joseph Pulitzer revived it in 1886 as a "compendium of universal knowledge." The almanac has been published annually since, outliving the newspaper whose name it still bears. (The World Almanac is not the oldest almanac in publication, though: that distinction belongs to The Old Farmer's Almanac, which is "North America's oldest continuously published periodical," founded in 1792.) The World Almanac contains much useful information that belongs in any serious basic-reference set. For the world, the almanac presents basic statistics about each nation, and about the world's major religions; and summarizes the world's history, with more detailed histories of the United States and of the preceding year. For the United States, the almanac reprints the nation's organic documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; contains a directory of the entire Federal government; presents basic statistics about each state and major city, and a short biography of each president; and much more. The almanac also contains bountiful information about education, science, sports, and many other topics. The 2010 edition does differ in a few important respects from other recent editions -- sometimes for the better, sometimes not. For the better, the 2010 edition reinstates the longtime feature (omitted from the 2009 edition) listing every community with a population over 10,000 (raised from 5,000 in older editions), with its ZIP code and area code. But on the downside, evidently the tradeoff for reinstating that listing was dropping the listing of counties and county seats. And while I was hopeful that the delay in releasing the 2010 almanac until December 2009 meant more up-to-date coverage of the year 2009, in fact the coverage ends in October 2009, consistent with recent editions. (The preceding year's news had been ending earlier and earlier in recent editions: in the 1999 edition the last entry was 3 November 1998, in the 2004 edition it was 16 October 2003, and in the 2008 edition it was 12 October 2007.) Overall, though, the 2010 World Almanac continues to set the standard, and is well worth the price. No other single volume offers such a wealth of information on such a variety of subjects.

A cornucopia of information

This annual publication is a necessity in our household. It brings all manner of knowledge to one's fingertips. It's hard to write a coherent review of a work that covers so many areas of information. Among subjects covered: 2009 in review; economy7, business, and industry; crime; military affairs; health and vital statistics; science and technology; consumer information; U. S. government; U. S. facts, history, and elections; U. S. cities, states, and population; world history and culture; sports. There is also an index at the end. One way of getting a sense of the substance of this reference work is to note data and information taken at random by flipping to different pages throughout the volume. Page 55: consumption expenditures by category from 1990-2008 (categories include motor vehicles and parts, furniture and office equipment, clothing, health, education services and so on). Page 150: cigarette and alcohol use. Pages 342-343: descriptions of the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune (orbit, atmosphere, satellites, etc.). Page 473: areas administered by the U. S. Park Service; major territorial additions throughout American history (e.g., Louisiana Purchase, Alaska, Guam). Pages 652-653: ancient civilizations, such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China). Page 787: description of different countries on earth, such as Haiti and Honduras (with information on population, geography, type of government, monetary unit, transportation, and so on). Page 911: baseball (major accomplishments during 2009, such as Mark Buehrle's perfect game and final standings from the 2009 season). As always, a wonderful source of information. I often find myself going to the latest edition to check out one obscure fact or another.

Better than last year

Last year I complained LOUDLY that the 2009 World Almanac was missing some very useful information on zip codes, area codes, U.S. metropolitan area population rankings and town populations by state. I am pleased to report that the 2010 World Almanac reinstated all of the missing information. Thank you, World Almanac Books. Zip codes and area codes are once again provided by town, where they used to be, of considerable interest and use to this Almanac user. Largest metropolitan areas ranked by population are included again, as are U.S. population for Places Of 10,000 Or More by state, all with 2008 estimates based on 2000 census data. The metro populations also include 1990 census data. As expected, the full 2008 presidential election returns are provided by county and the section on Noted Personalities Entertainers of the Present & the Past remains a fun read for our celebrity-infatuated country. Alas, no listing for Jon & Kate but young women might like to know that Robert Pattinson has been added. My only gripe in the 2010 World Almanac is that the section on state and county populations has been omitted. It is not enough for me to reduce the rating a full star, but it is enough to be a little annoying. It would be nice to have it back, please. Since I want to end on a positive note, let me say that it never ceases to amaze me what a massive undertaking it is to update and publish this book, presenting such vast amounts of data in such a usable, understandable form. All that effort, the fact-checking and the proofing make this publication the annual treasure that it is.

Facts at Your Fingertips

The World Almanac has been published since the nineteenth century, and for good reason--it is a great reference book. Perhaps the most fascinating parts of the almanac are the sports section, the meteorological data, and the county-by-county presidential election returns. There is also statistical data for major U.S. cities, for each state in the Union, and for each nation in the world. Also included are factoids and data for all kinds of categories such as the economy, entertainment personalities, vital statistics, education, religion, astronomy, and much, much more. One could spend a long time just browsing in the almanac.