World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003

Rating:
Summary: An essential reference work for a "shrinking" planet
Review: I recently bought a copy of "The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003" for my workplace, and the book has gotten a lot of use. It's both a practical source of useful information and a fun thing to read in spare minutes.

The book reviews the top news stories of 2002, and includes coverage of the war on terrorism. There is a chronology covering 11 Oct. 2001 to 15 Oct 2002. The almanac is packed full of data in many categories: the U.S. government, arts and the media, awards, languages, religions, astronomy, nations of the world, etc. To make the book easy to use there is not only a one-page quick reference index and a more extensive general index, but also a quick thumb index on the back cover.

So if you want to know the salary of the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana, the name of the winner of the 1918 Pulitzer Prize in poetry, the surface area of the island of Elba, the number of Buddhists in Europe, or a huge number of other global facts, you've come to the right source.

Rating:
Summary: Best Almanac Available, But Where are the Elections?
Review: The World Almanac is the standard. Every year it's got all the information you need: economic statistics, historical data, states and presidents and sports. It's great again this year, except that the publishers rushed it to print and ignored the 2002 Congressional elections. Election data, state-by-state returns, are one of the key attractions of the Almanac, so this is a sore disappointment. Suggest that future readers, before buying, check to see if it covers the elections returns. If not, give it a pass.

Rating:
Summary: An Old Standard Gone Bad
Review: There seem to be a lot more almanacs on the market than there used to be, and after reading through the World Almanac 2003 I'm understanding why. Compared to its competitors, this book is difficult to read and poorly organized. Although there are some interesting news features, the incredibly small print leaves you with eye strain when reading them. On the whole, it seems there is little effort put in to make this book different from those of the previous years. The personalities entries are especially skimpy and offer little information, and the photos are not worth a second look.