The World Book encyclopedia
by World Book, Inc · first published 2011
36% recommend56% neutral8% critical
Why HN recommends it
A browsable, random-access reference that makes learning feel like exploration, covering nearly any topic for school kids and curious readers. It is read for pleasure over many years.
Common criticism: Some find its articles too short and its illustrations too heavy for older readers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"A 22-volume, highly illustrated, A-Z general encyclopedia for all ages, featuring sections on how to use World Book, other research aids, pronunciation key, a student guide to better writing, speaking, and research skills, and comprehensive index"--Provided by publisher.
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…pointing it out to us. By the way, you are only looking at the English Wikipedia, not the whole thing. The 12,000 articles in English is a vast amount, albeit many were stubs or rather deficient. But the World Book Encyclopedia covered any topic a college girl could ask for at the time. Moreover, the book series is perfectly preserved to this day. In the 1980s it was already aged by 20-30 years, but the formatting, crisp photos,…
on “A 12-year sequence of telescope images of a star and four planets orbiting” ↗Oh, man! What a temptation. I grew up in a house that my father filled with books, including the World Book Encyclopedia which I liked but the book resource I treasured the most was a multi-volume OED set he had bought used.
on “Like an Uncut Cake: The enduring appeal of the hard-copy encyclopedia” ↗…significant other does not have quite the same warm feelings as I do since $125 was a bucket-load of money when we were getting started). It makes for interesting reading. It would be amusing to add the World Book encyclopedia of 2044 to the collection although I doubt my kids or grandkids would be quite as amused as me.
on “I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing” ↗The World Book Encyclopedia, complete with a two volume dictionary and an annual supplemental volume. I spent much of my childhood and adolescence buried in the many thousands of glossy, fine print pages. And the most awaited day…
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?” ↗Excellent storyteller! This reminds me of a long running series from the Chicago Sun Times: ''Things I Learned En Route to Looking Up Other Things.'' That column dovetailed with my love of reading the World Book Encyclopedia in a random fashion.
on “Biological Batteries (1995)” ↗> Aside from the shark photo and the print error, I am genuinely proud to own a modern World Book Encyclopedia. And I say that freely, having purchased the set out of pocket myself. If the author had to buy it with his own money, it's a pretty lame sponsored post.
on “I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing” ↗I have tons of memories of reading my parents' World Book Encyclopedia growing up. Honestly, getting a print copy for my kids to browse through doesn't seem a bad idea.
on “I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing” ↗This got my attention. I recall reading my World Book encyclopedia back when I was a kid in the 1950s for many, many absorbing hours. Tremendous enjoyment. I see that Amazon's selling the 2023 edition for $1200 BUT World Book is selling the 2022 edition new for $500…
on “I bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing” ↗When I was seven years old, my mom got ensnared by a door-to-door World Book encyclopedia sales pitch. That set, in turn, ensnared me. It was the closest thing in the 1970s to today's internet. I could look up almost any topic that came to mind. I could research any topic we were learning…
on “Ask HN: Which book has had the most meaningful contribution in your life?” ↗My mother's high school graduation present was a fully illustrated, complete set of the World Book Encyclopedia. It played second fiddle and competitor to Encyclopedia Britannica. Many families would purchase these as a limited subscription, where one volume would be delivered per month, until they collected the…
on “A 12-year sequence of telescope images of a star and four planets orbiting” ↗…have to explain that you're leaving at 5PM so that you can have dinner with your family and that you'll be online later) The dinner table rules were any question was allowed, we owned a used set of the World Book Encyclopedia to answer questions. When driving on the road we encouraged questions about "What do you think that is?" and ways we might be able to guess the purpose of what ever it was we were looking at. Ways to…
on “Ask HN: How to raise a hacker?” ↗…in English; § 3.2.2.2 Active Components[2] are listed in Spanish. I'm clearly not the target audience here, but I'd be lying if there wasn't a sense of conceit in its objectivity...kind of like those World Book encyclopedia entries I'd read for hours at a time as a kid, becoming aware of the existence of something, but only enough to sow more questions than answers. [1] https://electroagenda.com/en/a-summary-of-electronics/analog...…
on “A Summary of Electronics” ↗…questions and curiosity. As a family we have had two activities that have really bound us together, one is my wife's insistence that we always had dinner together, and camping. We also had a used copy of the World Book encyclopedia in a bookshelf near the dinner table, as a series of the Time-Life books on various topics, as well as various popular desktop references like the Scientific American Science Desk Reference. At dinner…
on “Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?” ↗…it would help kids learn reading, 'riting, or 'rithmatic better than the traditional methods. Like you say, it's a great reference tool. But if my school library didn't have any reference books (the World Book Encyclopedia, back in my day), the only impact to my learning would have been that research papers were harder to write. (Man, I hated those things. And those stupid note cards)
on “Result of Giving Poor Households Computer Vouchers” ↗…that they'd never find out another way. Witness the meme of getting lost exploring links on Wikipedia. That's a relatively new phenomenon, to read an encyclopaedia that way. When I was a kid, we had World Book Encyclopedia, and I read every volume cover-to-cover... but most people didn't do that. Wikipedia (and the internet in general) has given the wider public the ability to get lost in a reference work. Ultimately the…
on “The Internet is Shit (2003)” ↗