Guinness World Records 2024

The 2024 Guinness World Record Book will be received with great anticipation from its loyal readers. This year 30,000 applications were reviewed and only 2,638 were featured. The theme for 2024 is the Blue Planet and celebrates a number of underwater achievements including swimmers, sailors, mermaids and sea creatures.

The bright cover and busy end papers reflect this year’s theme and showcase transparent pods of scenes connected underwater. The Contents page lists nine chapters plus the Stop Press to browse through with the headings of Blue Planet, Aquatic Life, Humans, Recordology, Adventures, History, Science & Technology, Arts & Media and Sports. Each chapter begins with an Explainer e.g. in the Aquatic Life section this is about the Giant Pacific Octopus. This is followed by a list of the topics or people discussed with adjacent page numbers and recognises Hall of Fame award winners under each main heading.

In the first few pages it is wonderful to see many Australians featuring prominently. These include Dylan Alcott for the most Grand Slam tennis quad singles titles (5), Raine Kent for the fastest speed on an electric skateboard (132.37km/h), Jenny Doan whose record is for the most consecutive stairs climbed while hula-hooping (10, 241) and perhaps one of the more unusual records from Adelaide South Australia is Dani Reynolds wearing the widest wig! (2.58m wide). Also in the early pages are Kids Records and more information about Young Achievers.

Towards the end of the book is a Stop Press section where entries that came in after the closing date for submissions are added. The first one will be of interest to children, the largest slime making lesson was attended by 491 students in Quebec, Canada. This latest addition of the Guinness World Records book will fly off library and book sellers’ shelves.

Visit the website to explore and find out more.

Themes: Blue Planet, Underwater Records, Record-breaking Achievements, History, Sports.

Kathryn Beilby