Book review
Random House/Miles Kelly Publishing hardback
Release date 2 October 2008

More gloriously weird wonders from around the world…

Here's another colourful tome that keeps alive the spirit of Robert Ripley, the man who travelled around the globe seeking out the curious and arcane.

The book is broken down into self-explanatory chapters – ‘Strange Tales’, ‘Amazing Animals’, ‘Medical Marvels’ and so forth, and the whole thing is written in a lively style and accompanied by bright, occasionally sick (giant tumour anyone?) images. And so you can learn about such diverse topics as a man who can conduct electricity, the world’s largest sausage, pig painters (they use their snouts and trotters naturally) and a man with a full English breakfast tattooed on his head (WHY? WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT?).

Occasionally educational, more often sensational, it’s a book that opens your eyes to just how odd the world we live in really is. James Skipp

VERDICT: 7/10
A fun/slightly frightening celebration of the baffling and the bizarre. Cool hologram cover too.