Whitaker's Britain, Bloomsbury, 2013, 186p, £9-99 hardback, ISBN 9781472903051

Whitaker's Britain a selection of edited highlights from the one hundred and forty five editions of Whitaker's Almanac, since it was launched by Joseph Whitaker in 1868. Each extract is accompanied by helpful commentary.

A local or contemporary historian could, however, use this book as an aide memoire to enable him or her to match regional, national and international events with their study of their own chosen locality.  In the section entitled ‘Remarkable Occurrences', for example, on 4 January 1868 the 1869 edition reported that an earthquake was felt in the Vale of Parret and other parts of Somerset; and the 1909 edition recorded that on 13 May 1908 a heavy thunderstorm raged over Lincolnshire, with one of the pinnacles of Boston's Parish Church, the ‘Boston Stump', being displaced by lightning. The ‘Weather' section provides, amongst others, details of the Lynmouth flooding disaster of August 1953 and the devastating East Coast floods of 1 February 1953. Such information may have wider implications or applications

The extracts quoted  are sufficient to reveal that local and contemporary could indeed consider using the annual editions of Whitaker's Almanac as a resource to help them introduce a wider context to their research.