"Perfectly Peculiar: Ripley's Believe it or Not" by Robert Leroy Ripley (Arrow Publishing)

When we were in Florida we visited the strange topsy turvy building housing the Orlando branch of "Ripley's Believe it or Not".

C became somewhat obsessed with the place, and listed it as one of her favourite destinations (which took us by surprise as we thought it was a bit of a rip off, believe it or not!)

So she was delighted to find "Perfectly Peculiar! Ripley's Believe it or Not" in our local library.

Following similar lines to the latter Guiness Book of Records annuals, this smorgasbord of the sublimey weird is full of awesome photos and illustrations, plus quite a bit of history about Robert Ripley himself.

Starting out as a collector of antiquities, as well as a world traveller, Ripley gathered together some truly bizarre objects from across the world, and also collected stories and anecdotes, newspaper and magazine articles about strange feats by humans and animals, some of which you'll find in this book.

Meet a man who has tattooed his entire body with leopard spots (the strange looking fellah on the cover here) as well as other practitioners of body modification. Find odd animals, weird fish, and some crazy goings on through some of the interesting factoids scattered throughout this book.

Guaranteed to keep your kids blissfully quiet for hours, though some of the content is a bit close to the bone (did we really need to know about someone who hacked her ex's tattoo off her arm before mailing it to him?)

Sum this book up in a sentence: From the strange to the truly phenomenally weird, this book collects together a ton of interesting facts and history about Ripley's Believe it or Not, and shows off some of the most bizarre and peculiar things from across our weird world.

"Perfectly Peculiar: Ripley's Believe it or Not" by Robert Leroy Ripley is out now, published by Arrow (Library Loan - not supplied for review).