Ripley’s annual book of oddities and accomplishments is again on sale. This one features a car made out of wood, one exceptionally bendy British gal, a pickle-juice drinking competition and Pearl, a 5-inch-long chihuahua that lives in Orlando .
“We just really want to celebrate diversity and everything different,” said Amanda Joiner, Ripley’s vice president of creative solutions.
This year’s volume, the company’s 21st, is titled “Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Dare to Discover.” It’s produced by Orlando-based Ripley Entertainment .
“Our research team goes through and takes a year researching and finding all the new great stories and people, places and things that we want to be able to tell people about,” Joiner said.
Ripley’s process had an unexpected disruption in early 2024 after it was made public that three of its publications – including one that celebrates the 100-year history of the company – were flagged for review for a banned book list by the Escambia County School District.
“I’ve been working on the publishing program for 18 years, and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what could have caused the trigger,” Joiner said. “When we thought about it and thought about what that means for the consumers and just people in general, we decided to kind of take a stand,” she said.
In the spring, Ripley’s announced it would provide a free copy of a Ripley book to any Floridian who asked for one. It received 20,000 requests.
“We got tons of positive feedback,” Joiner said. “I was kind of surprised that there were a lot of grandparents and people that were really kind of curious as to, well, why …. what’s in there that could be banned.”
The Escambia list, with 1,600 flagged books, hit the news cycle as the just-published Ripley book was getting ready to go to press, Joiner said. The staff reviewed all the stories first.
“Honestly, at the end of the day, I just think we really didn’t make any changes,” she said.
In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law that restricts requests to remove books from schools to one title per month, and those must come from a person with a child in the affected school district.
Ripley’s annuals feature snippets of type — short stories told quickly — accompanied by large, colorful photographs. Its new “Dare to Discover” book is 256 pages. Entries include blurbs about Liberty Barros, a U.K. teen who can bend so far backward that her head is by her knees, and Robyn Slain, one of three women in the United States who can spin 10 basketballs at once.
French carpenter Michel Robillard reproduced a Citroen 2CV using timber from fruit and nut trees, the book says. The vehicle can go up to 50 mph.
Closer to home, the book calls attention to Pearl, a chihuahua that was recognized as the world’s shortest dog last year. The pup and her owner, Vanesa Semler, live in Orlando. Pearl is 3.6 inches tall and weighed less than 1 ounce at birth, Ripley says.
“At two years old, the petite pup is just 1.2 pounds – this book weighs almost three times that,” Pearl’s blurb reads.
The book retails for $29.95 and is available in stores and online.
“One of the hallmarks that I just love about the company is that it’s never a boring day,” Joiner said. “You always meet someone new. We always find out a new fact.”
dbevil@orlandosentinel.com
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