Speaker 1: Yes, yes, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2: I'm good? How are you?
Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic? I mean, here we are. This has become
such an annual event for so many generations, the next
World Almanac.
Speaker 2: You know, it is a tradition, I think for a
lot of people. The World Almanac has been published since
eighteen sixty eight, and some people have been buying it
or receiving it as a gift for really their entire lives.
It's always an up to date resource to have for
any upcoming year, no matter what you're getting your World Almanac.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I always love about the
World Almanac is the fact that the choice of colors
on the front cover. And that's not to judge a
book by its cover, but I notice it's red this year,
and I feel a tremendous amount of energy. Was there
anything in the marketing when it comes to the color red?
Speaker 2: You know, we haven't actually done any you know, specific
scientific research as far as that goes. We do change
the color every year, and generally in elections those tend
to be either red, white, or blue. Just because you know,
people are in a patriotic space, or at least they
have patriotics on their minds, so that tends to happen
in election years. I definitely think this cover is a
great one. It does show a lot of different things
that happened in twenty twenty four, not just the election.
We also have Ariana Grande, who of course starting Wicked
this year. We've got simone files. You know, a lot
of great events of twenty twenty four are represented on
this year's cover.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things in the book is just
the information. I'm not sitting there on a computer, I'm
not sitting there on some other digital device. I get
to patiently take my time to go through these pages.
I mean, and it doesn't mean that I'm an old guy.
It's just that you have so much valuable information here.
Speaker 2: You know, that's the goal with the World Almanac, And
we know that most people don't actually sit down and
read it cover to cover as though it's a novel.
But we do think that people will pick it up
randomly over the course of day, a week, a year,
flipped to any page in particular, and find something there
that they wouldn't have thought to look up online, or
that they wouldn't have come across in their day to
day without picking up the World DOMINAC and I hope
that's still, you know, a fun thing for people to do,
because I think that most people are curious and want
to know more about the world. We're trying to provide
a tool with the World Amanac that can make that
a lot easier on you.
Speaker 1: I would love to see the research on how people
react when they go into the year in pictures, because
even to see King Charles, not Prince Charles, wod King
Charles and his new painting, I mean, I look at
that and it takes me right back to the moment
where it was introduced to the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, twenty twenty four was a really eventful year.
Not just the election, you know that may have dominated
most news broadcasts in twenty twenty four. It was a
busy year. We had a lot of events that stole
our attention, everything from the Olympics to the really fat,
fabulous solar eclipse that everyone was excited about earlier this year.
There are a lot of events to think about going
back in twenty twenty four and to re remembered as
we put this book together. That was one of our
goals to make sure that it was a really great
representation of everything that happened in twenty twenty four, and
also you know, your tool for anything that you might
have questions about in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, That's one thing I like about it is
the fact that it's not necessarily a time capsule. It's
almost like saying, okay, to get where we are right
now on the Google calendar, this stuff happened. Therefore we
can still look forward to growing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know, the World Omanac is a fantastic resource
to get to all of those events, as I said,
but also, you know, just for anything you might have
questions about. For example, in every World Almanac, even though
they're updated every year, you're always going to find things
like an article about every nation in the world. You're
always going to find an article about every state in
the Union. You're always going to find a copy of
the periodic table if that's what you have questions about.
You really do have all of these things right at
your fingertips, and that can you know, really introduce new
ways to learn, new ways to grow. Every single day.
Speaker 1: How many Swifties are going to be calling you guys
up saying hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, what about that
Eras tour?
Speaker 2: You know, what. I think that they'll be happy to
see Taylor Swift both in the year. In pictures, We've
got a great photo from one of her eras tour shows.
We also have you know, statistics on the highest grossing
concert tours, and guess what, she's already among them. She's
already right there at the top. So definitely something that
we were keeping eye on, just as we keep an
eye on everything that's going on, not just in the news,
but pop culture, in sports. We want the World Almenac
to represent all of these things.
Speaker 1: Well, I love the weird stories that you put in
here because I give you like a child. I mean,
march me Aunis. How would have ever known that there
was such a thing without the World Almanac.
Speaker 2: March Mianis was a very fun story. Public Library decided
to really extend an olive branch to their borrowers and
anyone who had you know, overdue book finds or maybe
lost something during the pandemic, they could get amnesty in
exchange for any cat photo, you know, a picture, you
drew a picture on your phone. They were pretty open
to anything there. So I think Marchionis is maybe something
that could sweep the Public Library World by Storm. I
think they had a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 1: You know, listeners need to understand that the live I
was at the library yesterday for the first time and
I don't know how long, that it is not the
same library that we used to go to as younger people.
That there really is technology involved the people I mean,
and that's why I mean, if people can't go out
and get the book, this book will be at a
public library.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And we love public libraries here at the
World Omenax. Fantastic resource. And you're absolutely right. It's not
just you know, shelves of books arranged according to the
Dewey decimal system and that you have to look in
a card catalog anymore. You definitely have access to a
ton of technology. Some libraries even have you know, tool
lending libraries and things like that. They really are a
public service for so many different things in our communities.
Speaker 1: Are you shocked at how science has become so huge
in our life these days?
Speaker 2: You know, it's never surprising to me what people are
curious about and want to talk about. I think that,
you know, just people are curious creatures in general, and
they always have new questions that they want answers to.
So I think it's it's pretty much to be expected
that science plays a huge role. That science news stories
and the developments and AI are things that people have
questions about, want to talk about, want to know what's
going to happen with and that's something that we're alway
is keeping an eye on.
Speaker 1: At the World DOMINAC, with so much going on in
the world, how did you even come up with the
top ten stories of the year, Because, I mean there's
just so much always going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it really is a year long process
to track everything that's going on over the course of
the year. It helps that the World DOMANAC also has
a month by month news chronology, which really just gives
them news topics for every single month of the past year.
So once we take that, we look at all of
these stories that sort of form these common threads across
the entire year. Obviously, in a presidential election year, that'll
be up there in your top ten. But in twenty
twenty four, we also had big stories in Gaza and
the Ukraine ongoing conflicts. We also had three different major
hurricanes hit the US in twenty twenty four, so lots
of big news stories really jumped out right from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Wow, where can people go to find out more about
you and the World Omanac for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Well, you can go to Worldomanac dot com and then
I'll take you to places that you can buy the
book online. You can also just go to your local bookstore,
go to your local library. You can find the World
Almanac and Book of Facts for twenty twenty five. There
in three different formats. We've got the paperback, which most
people are probably familiar with. We've also got a larger
hardcover for that's especially for those who have trouble with
the smaller type face that the paperback uses. And then
we also have an e book edition so you can
download it to your device, take it on the go
with you. It's slightly more portable than that one thousand
and eight page volume.
Speaker 1: Yeah one in the digital you know, if it's right
there in my pocket on my smartphone, I dig that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely take it with you everywhere you go.
Speaker 1: Please come back to the show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2: All right, Thank you so much. I appreciate that, and
I'll look forward to it. You'd be brilliant Okay, thank
you so much,