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    Getting into Guinness: One man’s longest, fastest, highest journey inside the world’s most famous record book
    Unavailable
    Getting into Guinness: One man’s longest, fastest, highest journey inside the world’s most famous record book
    Unavailable
    Getting into Guinness: One man’s longest, fastest, highest journey inside the world’s most famous record book
    Ebook386 pages6 hours

    Getting into Guinness: One man’s longest, fastest, highest journey inside the world’s most famous record book

    By Larry Olmsted

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    Getting Into Guinness is the hilarious true story of record breaking attempts, how record obsession has become a global phenomenon, the weird and wonderful characters that set records and the history of the Guinness Book of World Records.

    Meet Larry Olmsted, a freelance travel and sports writer, always on the hunt for new and intriguing stories. In Spring 2003, somewhere over the North Atlantic, Larry stumbled on an article about the worldwide popularity of Guinness. Inspired by what he read, and in a bid to impress his editor, he took the drastic decision to set a record of his own and become part of the book's history. This leads Larry to break the record for the greatest distance travelled between two rounds of golf played on the same day and two years later to play poker continuously for 72 hours.

    After his own hilarious record attempts, Larry sets out to discover more about the vast and colourful history of the Guinness Book of World Records. This leads him to his fellow record setters with their widely varied motives for record-mania. Meet Ashrita, Record Breaker for God, who has been breaking records for 30 years and has set or broken 177 Guinness World Records in his lifetime. And Jackie 'The Texas Snakeman' Bibby, who became one of the book's all time icons by sharing a bathtub with poisonous rattlesnakes and dangling them from his mouth, and who literally puts his life on the line every time he breaks one of his rattlesnake records.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateNov 26, 2009
    ISBN9780007353620
    Unavailable
    Getting into Guinness: One man’s longest, fastest, highest journey inside the world’s most famous record book
    Author

    Larry Olmsted

    Writer, editor and book author specializing in travel, golf, lifestyle topics, skiing, food, wine & spirits, poker & gaming, outdoor recreation and participant sports. Published more than 3000 articles, including features and cover stories. Contributor to major publications.

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    Reviews for Getting into Guinness

    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      I was eager to ready Larry Olmsted's book on Guinness. Like many people I grew up with a complete fascination over the book and its records, always dreaming of holding a 'World Record' in something. Olmstead's book at time engages that fascination with some extremely insightful and entertaining looks at the world of The Guinness Book of Records.Getting into Guinness is at its best when Olmstead recounts his own personal attempts at records, and perhaps if this book had been written as a personal essay it might have been better. Unfortunately its academic look at the book and its history is just plain tedious. Olmstead has an awful habit of repeating himself. He references Ben Sherwood's The Man Who Ate the 747 at least fifteen times, leans too heavily on Ken Jennings and repeats over and over the accomplishments of Ashrita Furman (who by the end of the book you will be completely sick of).About 150 pages into the book I felt 'done', unfortunately it's almost a 300 page book. Slogging through the rest of the book did have its rewards but the effort to get there is barely worth it. Ultimately Getting into Guinness is a book that covers a fantastic topic poorly, all the pieces to a good book are there but they're not assembled well. I don't think Olmstead is a bad writer at all, he does hit the mark many times in this book, but he needs a much better editor and with some hefty revisions this could actually be a book worth recommending.