Guinness World Records 2021: as bold as any record-recording book that came before it

By creammagazine, October 2, 2020

Every year, Guinness World Records publishes its massive compendium on record-breaking from around the globe.

Gorgeously illustrated front and back, Guinness World Records 2021 is as bold a bible as any that came before it. It’s packed with stacks of mind-boggling record-breaking along with factoids about everything from natural phenomena to human stunts, religious events to medical marvels, sex acts to sports, and earthly delights to out-of-this-world anecdotes (quite literally, since there are specific sections on several of the planets).

The book is so up-to-date, it’s first page boasts news of the world’s fastest electric ice-cream van (run by Edd China of the UK whose Edd’s Electric Ices vehicle peaked at a speed of 118.964 km/h, FYI).

Indeed, this year’s Guinness covers plenty of ground (and sky, and space). Heck, there are even double page spreads dedicated to specific subjects such as ‘Feathers’ (ie: bird-related records), tongues and teeth, ‘Espionage’, and ‘Juggling Acts’, to name a few. And for the most part, the facts and figures are fascinating.

Did you know, for example, that there exists an actual ‘espionage museum’. The largest of its kind is the International Spy Museum in Washington, USA which houses over 9,000 spy-related artefacts and tools of the intelligence trade?

Or that, closer to home, the longest-running character portrayed by the same actor is Dame Edna Everage? Played by all-round larrikin Barry Humphries, as of 31st December 2019, the Tony Award winning actor has portrayed the Dame for an astonishing 64 years and 12 days. Fascinating, possums!

Sure, there are other random subjects written up about – such as the ‘heaviest shoes walked in’ and ‘largest mouth gape’ – but even these make the casual aspect of reading ‘Guinness’ that much more enlightening.

Towards the back of the big book there are entertaining sections on music, television, movies and social media – many factoids of which even we at Cream were unaware of. Sure we knew that Beyonce is the female recipient of the most number of Grammy nominations (70) but we didn’t know Eminem holds the record for most consecutive number one debuts on the US albums chart. But then again, should we have known?

The great thing about each updated Guinness World Records is that you can pick and choose what you want to read about at any given time. Want to delve deeper into space exploration? There’s a whole section for that! Want to just chomp down bits of pop cultural info? Sections for that, too.

So easy and enjoyable is the book to navigate, there’s even a ‘Superlative Index’ up the back. So if you’re looking for the biggest, the brightest, the highest, the hottest, the most valuable or even the smelliest, you’ve got it all laid bare here.

Antonino Tati

‘Guinness World Records 2021’ is available in hardback through quality physical and online bookstores, published through Pan Macmillan Australia.

GIVEAWAY! WIN ONE OF FIVE COPIES OF ‘GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS 2021’

Courtesy of Pan Macmillan Australia, Cream has five copies of ‘Guinness World Records 2021’ to give away. To try winning the big book, simply email your name, address and the Subject heading ‘Guinness World Records 2021’ to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm AWST, Friday 9th October, 2020.