Customer Reviews

Ripley's Believe It or Not! Encyclopedia of the Bizarre: Amazing, Strange, Inexplicable, Weird and All True!

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My fourth grader received this book as a gift...you can imagine the initial disappointment in receiving a book and not a gadget. He has not put the book down! He keeps it on his bed. When friends come to visit they actually read! It has provided him with many interesting details and amazing facts to share with his classmates and friends. These reports are truly conversation starters. Presented with colorful photos and drawings and easy to browse paragraphs, this book is easy to pick up and enjoy for a few minutes before school or for an hour of reading. The reading level is appropriate for grades 4-6. Third graders could easily enjoy the book as well. This would be a perfect coffee table book if your child had a coffee table!

Aaaah I love a good book showcasing the bizarre. This is an incredible book that includes interesting facts and photographs to boot, of amazing individuls, creatures, plants, and events. There is over 5,000 random selections of the most curious things. Some examples include a cow with 8 legs, a man with palm fronds in his skull, a cat born with fur that spells out cat, a dog that wears dentures, man who can flip up the stairs, a man who made an eccentric garden out of curving and knotting tree boughs, an eggplant whose seeds that spelled out God, the man who is turning himself into a lizard, men who can pick up cars, and women who can skate on their toes. Its like a Guiness Book of Records but these facts would not be exactly world famous but just unusual. I love this book and my friend bought this for her 11 year old who has read every page. Its filled with pictures and facts so its a huge collection. It would be great for a coffee table or anyone who embraces eccentricities or has a healthy curiosity.

You can't get a better trivia collection together than a "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" collection, and for fans of oddities and the bizarre. With the assistance of the "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" editorial staff, Julie Mooney's Ripley's Believe It or Not! Encyclopedia Of The Bizarre: Amazing, Strange, Inexplicable, Weird And All True! is one of the best. Enhanced with a profusion of color drawings, it outlines over 6,000 real oddities, from a re-creation of DaVinci's Mona Lisa from a piece of burnt toast to a six-year-old's invention of a battery-powered dog collar that glows in the dark. Packed from cover to cover with real-life oddities, Encyclopedia Of The Bizarre is a recommended pick for any public library holding.

Ripley produced his first Believe It or Not! cartoon about sport oddities on Dec.19,1918 in the New York Globe;and his cartoons have amazed and entertained us ever since.I received my first book of these cartoons in the 40's and have been reading them ever since.Many paperback editions were published throughout the 50's into the 80's and I have managed to find many of them.In addition, many large books have been published and the high standard set by Ripley has been maintained by the staff, in spite of the fact that Ripley died in 1949.Over the years there have been many imitators,and some very good,but in my opinion, no equals.Somehow, the originators have that extra spark.I would suggest Alan Funt of Candid Camera was another.

With respects to this book "BIZARRE";it's got to be one of the best,if not the best one yet.It includes over 6,000 oddities,facts and records in a beautiful,well made, with excellent glossy paper throughout it's 318 ,10 x 11 inch pages.The drawings and pictures are excellent.Although There are a few items I recall seeing before,I believe most are new.

For those who remember and enjoyed the cartoons in the papers;and don't get them anymore you'll really like this book.By the way,for those whose paper no longer carry this feature you can get it on the Net at Ripley's Believe It or Not!

Before moving on, let me say that Ripley was a bigger than life character himself .His friend Bob Considine wrote a book,"Ripley--The Modern Marco Polo--The Life and Times of the Creator of "Believe It or Not";published in 1961 by Doubleday.There you'll learn about the man who owned a Chinese Junk which he sailed on Long Island Sound.He owned the most expensive cars but didn,t drive them.He loved liquor and women,but considered smoking and card playing evil and would have nothing to do with them.He was very shy, but no contemporary matched him in flamboyance or in seeking notoriety.--Believe It or Not!,that was Ripley,the man.

This book is awesome. I have had it for about 3 years now,and every time I read it I learn something new. Even the book itself is a conversation starter with its bright orange cover and hologram on the front, but you're friends will really be amazed when they hear about the only albino giraffe or the man with the Devil's toungue.I recommend this book to anyone who likes the Bizzare, for thats what this book is.

This is definitely the most interesting encyclopedia of facts out there. The cover makes this stand out alone with a hologram of a guy moving up and down stairs on his head. There?s over 6000 facts in here, some you will have already seen if you've been to a Ripley's museum, but a lot you won't have.

There's stuff such as the sailing ship (Eclipse) that was hit by a meteorite out in the Pacific Ocean. The funniest entires in here are real life grave stones such as Here Lies the Body of Jonathan Blake, Stepped on the Gas Instead of the Brake. You'll also see photographs of stuff like the world's biggest broom and smallest violin as well as hotels shaped like elephants. Read about the guy who returned a library book his grandfather borrowed that was 145 years overdue and was fined $22, 646. There's so much to see and read in this huge encyclopedia. You have to own it.

If you want other good entertaining and educational books covering these topics also check out Creepy Stuff, Encyclopedia Horrifica: The Terrifying TRUTH! About Vampires, Ghosts, Monsters, and More and the brilliant Informania: Vampires or Spine-Tingling Tales (Info Adventure).

Typical of a Ripley's Beleive It Or Not book, there are no

refrences. It is a collection of cute trivia from the older

Ripley's Believe It Or Not books. Problem is, most of what

can be checked, is wrong. Frank Wells was never on the Titanic

nor the other ship disasters claimed. The section on laws

includes myths and jokes that someone believed. Stories from

older Ripley books are re-told with different names. It even

says "Mushrooms are a fruit." (They are actually fungi.)

This book features standard Ripley's fare with more of an emphasis on facts (it is, after all, an encyclopedia) than on cartoons although quite a few of those as well as some photographs appear within this collection. Some of these facts are not things you are likely to find out about elsewhere such as the momordica, which is a fruit purported to taste like roast veal! This collection has over 6000 such facts and is fun to read at anytime of the day or evening.

Having lost all of my classroom materials in Hurricane Katrina, I was hunting for things to furnish my room at my new school. I don't remember where I heard about this book, but I purchased it from Amazon and it was the best money I have spent in a long time. I teach in an all-boys school - boys love weird stuff! That book is in someone's hands all the time. I may have to buy another copy soon - this one is getting worn out. Adults will not find it overly interesting, but I bought it for the kids and they definitely do.

Good book if you are a fan of the unbelievable and Robert R. Ripley. This is great, long cofee table book on almost EVERY SINGLE subject you can think about! There are over 1,400 unbelievable facts in this book, more than you can think about!

This book is over 300 pages long in its first print (over 200 in second print) and worth every single penny!