Guinness World Records a book supplying the answers to this sort of question might prove successful. Beaver's idea became reality when Guinness employee Christopher Chataway recommended University friends Norris and Ross McWhirter, who had been running a fact-finding agency in London. The twin brothers were commissioned to compile what became "The Guinness Book of Records" in August 1954. A thousand copies were printed and given away. After the founding of "The Guinness Book of Records" at 107 Fleet Street, London, the first 198-page edition was bound on 27 August 1955 and went to the top of the British best seller lists by Christmas.
The Wright Brothers (book) and the truly admirable human qualities that they personified, I would have wanted to write the book even if they hadn't succeeded in inventing the flying machine." "The Wright Brothers" has been praised by literary critics and historians. Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" described it as a "concise, exciting and fact-packed book [that] sees the easy segue between bicycling and aerial locomotion, which at that point was mostly a topic for bird fanciers and dreamers." She added, "Mr. McCullough presents all this with dignified panache, and with detail so granular you may wonder how it was all collected."