ALMANAC 2022

The newest edition of a wide-angled page-turner, rearranged and refreshed.

Moderate quantities of new visual and narrative material have been stirred into the 2021 edition’s tweaked and reordered chapters, but the occasional tables of summarized reference data still coexist uneasily with hundreds of bursts of memorable general facts and images. To go with the tiled gallery of U.S. presidents (including Joe Biden) and a timely shoutout to the recently deceased civil rights icon John Lewis, for instance, the “History Happens” chapter is largely filled with ganders at a few random subjects. Likewise, rather than a timeline or highlight reel of recent events, the opening “Your World 2022” chapter throws together profiles of heroic dogs and other animals, celebrates the Harry Potter series’ 25th birthday, and commemorates nine lesser-known holidays like International Joke Day. Readers hoping for straight (or any) dope on the Covid-19 pandemic, information about Taiwan (according to the editors, not a country but a “disputed area”), or even just to see Native Americans in other than ceremonial dress will have to look elsewhere. Still, this gathering of upbeat, vividly illustrated, browser-friendly dips into topics ranging from black holes to blue-footed boobies to Bolivian street food is hard to put down, and the pop quizzes and research guides at each chapter’s end will give studious sorts a leg up, too.

More suited to dipping than diving but notable for both scope and production values.