Guinness World Records 2026 packs plenty of pop culture punch: we’ve got 15 copies to give away!
They say don’t judge a book by its cover. If you did, you might look at the Guinness World Records 2026 with its 2D monochrome cover design and wonder, where was the budget? We write this keeping in mind that previous covers have gone so far as to have beautiful embossed titles in full glorious colour – and we’re suckers for a pretty wrapped book for the coffee table.
This year, the GWR book has been stripped back to a basic black and yellow (two shades when combined spell budget-friendly bargain) and is dotted with quick illustrations on the cover that include a light globe, a lemon, a rubber duckie, and a cob of corn. Looking relatively simple, nonetheless.
But we say don’t judge a book by its cover because the amount of astonishing information inside this tome is plentiful and the things you’ll learn endlessly fascinating. This year’s trusty compendium is packed with record-breaking results in fields as afar as science and art, nature and technology, sports and finance.
Gloriously illustrated within and throughout, Guinness World Records 2026 is packed with stacks of head-scratching, record-breaking anecdotes along with facts about everything from natural phenomena to technological marvels, sporting feats to collector records.
Since we’re major followers of everything pop culture, we delved right into the television stream to discover that Game of Thrones is listed as the most in-demand TV show while newcomer series such as Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar and Hazbin Hotel take honours for “most in-demand debut” and “most in-demand animated TV show” respectively. These alone are interesting findings as they show global audiences are increasingly embracing content beyond traditional Hollywood.
In the ‘Icons’ departments, Dolly Parton is recognised as having earnt the most Grammy nominations for a female country artist (55 of them!); Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine proved to be the highest-grossing film for 2025, raking in takins of $1.3billion; and Mario officially became the best-selling video game character of all time.
Pokémon has earnt the title of longest-running anime series based on a videogame, while Pikachu has become the most ubiquitous character in role-play gaming (he has appeared in 79 games plus a string of anime, movies, TV shows and shorts). Spongebob SquarePants is still the most popular children’s TV show – fifty times more popular than the average TV show, in fact; and The Simpsons are still at it, having the title of most number of Emmy awards won by an animated series. In the realm of collections, one standout is that toy collector Liesl Benecke of Western Australia, holds the record for the largest collection of Minions memorabilia (1035 pieces).
That last paragraph brings us back to the colour, yellow, doesn’t it just? As it turns out this year’s cover was designed not so for budgetary reasons but to showcase a whole bunch of yellow objects,the aforementioned includes. Choosing “the cheeriest of colours … to raise a sunny smile”, there are articles about the world’s largest solid-gold sculpture (the Golden Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand, at 9ft 10inches tall and weighing 6 tons), how bananas are the world’s most consumed fruit, how Coffs Harbour in New South Wales ought to be proud to host the world’s largest banana sculpture, and that the world’s largest cheese sculpture is that of a cow in Shanghai, China (1.73 metres long and made using 400 kgs of cheddar).
Go beyond the third main hue of the rainbow and discover a lot about practically every subject in this year’s Guinness World Records. The book’s fascinating facts make for great conversation starters, that’s for sure!
Antonino Tati & Michael Mastess
Guinness World Records 2026 is available in hardback, RRP $46.99.
Guinness World Records 2026 is published and distributed in Australia through Macmillan.
COMPETITION!
Cream has 15 copies of Guinness World Records 2026 to give away to lucky readers. To go into the draw to win a copy, simply email your name, address and the Subject heading ‘Guinness 2026’ to cream@pobox.com by 5pm AWST, Wednesday 5th November, 2025. Best of luck!
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