Customer Reviews

The New York Times Almanac 2008: The Almanac of Record

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I am an Almanac-ohlic. Call me a nerd but, I read them cover to cover. For eight years I bought Time Magazines yearly almanac every December, it was a ritual. For the past three I have gone with the New York Times edition (for personal reasons). The 2008 New York Times edition has been very disappointing. The facts are solid and easy to understand also, the figures aid in research, due to their sources of course, and the cut & paste of the CIA World Fact book for "Countries of the World" is a given. My problem is with the multiple misspellings, for example: "Nancy Peloti" pg. 123 (#60) and reprints of paragraphs (look up the one on Methamphetamine on pages 389 & 390). Now, I am no genius when it comes to proofreading something but, this is the New York Times. Do not be intimidated by an almanac. Personally, I believe that every home in the U.S. should own one. It's a good read on the crapper, especially this one.

I see nothing particularly great or particularly bad about this almanac. It has the same old features the standard Almanacs have had for years. I paid special attention here to areas in which I thought Innovation important. I read the Almanac's summaries of latest scientific and technological developments, for instance their report on the delay in the building of the Large Hadron Collider. They do explain that this will be used to test what is called the Standard Model, and in search of the Higgs Bison but they do not really explain this in depth. They point to new discoveries in various areas of biological research. I am not capable of evaluating how wise their judgment is in any of this.
The usual country - by- country Factbook presentation is given. In this I found a dearth of comparitive statistics, but generally reliable reporting.
While there is nothing in this Almanac to be excited about there is certainly nothing here to deter the reader from requiring this reliable source of information.

Well I bought this and found out that San Jose, Ca and Seattle WA lists the same person as mayor and he's not the name of the mayor of Seattle. I live in Seattle and the current mayor is Greg Nickels. Not the guy listed. If he's doing double duty in both cities, when does he sleep? If that's wrong what else might be wrong? You think the NY Times could call our local paper and ask. Who's the mayor of Seattle?

I use this Almanac constantly. The typeface is easy to read, even though small, and there is no better Almanac for providing information on a wide range of subjects. I really like it.

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