Featuring stories of tatooed ladies, bizarre medical facts and stories, and interviews with some of today's most fascinatingly odd people, this book has something to entertain every member of the family.
"RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! STRIKINGLY TRUE," by Geoff Tibbels, Ripley Publishing, $28.95, 256 pages (nf)
"Ripley's Believe it or Not" has long been the home of the weird and macabre, tantilizing audiences with glimpses into the strange happenings of our world. The newest book to venture forth from Ripley's vault is "Ripley's Believe it or Not! Strikingly True." This book reviews the most bizarre events and people from Ripley's long history up to the fantastic tales of even our neighbors today.
The bright red cover with a holographic eye that seems to pop out of the cover and follow your every move is the perfect frontpiece to this outrageous yearbook of the strange. Every turn of the page and its ensuing onslaught of weird facts and amazing pictures never fails to send readers rushing to friends and family spouting the phrase, "Did you know ...?"
"Featuring stories of tatooed ladies, bizarre medical facts and stories, and interviews with some of today's most fascinatingly odd people, this book has something to entertain every member of the family," says Ripley's Publishing. There are 13 chapters, each focusing on specific areas such as animals, transport, science, food and more.
Each page has amazing stories to keep you reading in morbid fascination. Included is the story of a man who bled to death after picking his nose with a little too much enthusiasm, and a woman who survived a shotgun blast thanks to her breast implants. Several of the mind-bending tales feature Utah residents.
These amazing but true tales range from the extraordinary Steve McFarlane of South Jordan, who can displace some of his internal organs to suck his stomach in with spectacular effect, to the heartwarming tale of a Utah railway company worker who rescued a stray dog that had been run over by a freight train twice on the same day and nursed the dog back to health with his family.
Other Utah-related mentions include:
- Three weeks after disappearing from Susan Garr's home in Salt Lake City, Millie, a 4-year-old Australian Shepherd mix, was found stuck in a storm drain. Rescue crews freed the dog, whose weight had dropped from 35 pounds to 22 pounds during her ordeal.
- In 2010, Angie Cromar from Murray, found herself pregnant with two babies at the same time - but they weren't twins. She was born with a rare condition called didelphys, meaning two uteruses, and she conceived in both, at odds of one in five million.
- In 2006, scientists in Utah discovered a 75-million-year-old fossil of a pregnant turtle, with a clutch of eggs inside.
- With the help of 150 students, high-school teacher Doyle Geddes of Smithfield, Utah, used 2 tons of breakfast cereal to create a massive reproduction of Vincent van Gogh's painting "Starry Night" measuring 72 by 90 feet.
- Dorena Young of Wallsburg, Wasatch County, has a collection of more than 3,600 salt-and-pepper shakers. She has been collecting them for more than 60 years and has ones shaped like boats, cats, dogs, deer, vegetables, hats, lighthouses and sea horses. She even has a pair of J.F.K. and Jackie Onassis salt-and-pepper shakers.
The book includes an eight-page gatefold pullout celebrating the first-ever Ripley's Odditorium at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, hundreds of pictures, a detailed index, and a listing of every Ripley's museum in the world.
Heidi Galieti is a freelance editor and book reviewer specializing in the fantasy and science fiction genres.