Ripley's Believe It or Not--Unlock the Weird!

As a child, the Ripley's Believe It or Not part of the Sunday funnies was always a favorite, and now I'm a grown-up, I still say yes very happily indeed when offered the latest new Ripley's book--Unlock the Weird!-- to review!  Although it's kind of hard to "review" a Ripley's book...they are all so full of so many different, strange, eye-opening, and educational tidbits and pictures that you can't evaluate them all.  One can chose favorite things (like a Darth Vader helmet carved by a Tahitian artist in the style of a ceremonial skull to demonstrate the intersections of the modern world and indigenous cultures), and one can find things that don't seem all that interesting (it's a matter of personal taste; I, for instance, am not that stirred by someone having a list of 20 Washington Redskins players tattooed on their back).

But Unlock the Weird! like all the Ripley books, offers great browsing fun...it's like a really cool facebook feed in paper form, and so these are great books to offer kids who like to learn neat stuff but don't think they like to read books!

So this is more of a "heads up, it's here" post than a review, but I can say with confidence that this one is another fine addition to the Ripley's shelf, and I enjoyed it lots.