Less of a history book, more of an almanac of statistics so if you’re into that? Perfect for you. I think the fact the book is just a standard statistics guide should be better advertised so no one is led to believe it is a complex history of figure skating

Publishing an encyclopedia in 2025 is an interesting choice. This book will only appeal to a very small, niche audience. I have been both a figure skater and a reader my entire life. I watch skating regularly and keep up with the sport via podcasts, articles, social media, etc. And even for me, this book was incredibly dry and not something I would consider purchasing. It is primarily lists summarizing the scores and placements of every World Championships ever held. There is a smattering of interesting facts and stories sprinkled throughout, and even fewer photos. I am not sure who exactly is the intended audience. It's not a coffee table book, and I can't imagine many people are purchasing reference about Worlds. Still, I appreciate that the author wanted to gather all of this information into one place. I hope he finds a market for it.

I really wanted to like this book but I found it mostly just to be a list of all of the placements at previous world championships, not much history or writing in it.

This has a lot of fun anecdotes and fun facts from the past! While I'm more knowledgeable in more recent years of the sport, it was great to learn about anything pre-21st century! The information was also quite easy to ingest. I especially enjoyed getting to more recent years with Worlds I remember watching, and notably Montreal (2024) and Boston (2025) because I was there working behind the scenes.

This highlighted every year of Worlds in such a sweet and short and succinct way!

This is more a compilation of records than a narrative story. I think it would make a fantastic coffee table or reference book for any avid figure skating fan, and I’d love to add it to my physical library for that reason.

I do wish there had been more photos alongside the results and brief descriptive paragraphs. That said, now that I’ve discovered this author, I fully intend to explore more of his figure skating works.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for this eARC!

I 1988, skater Brian Orser turned pro.

From then on, I was a figure skating freak, even getting to meet Orser various times.

I feel I am pretty knowledgeable about figure skating, but this book showed me how many things I never new.

It is obvious that this book was very well researched and surprisingly, despite the information, the book never gets dull.

Very well written.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This book is a quick run-down of the history of the World Figure Skating Championships - all the way from the beginning in the late 19th century. I appreciate the small blurbs that appeared throughout giving a bit more detail on what was happening but I think it could have used more of this and less of a repetitive tone.

If you are looking purely for a historical listing of results, this will be for you, but you won't learn a ton about figure skating on top of that.

I received a free copy of, A Complete History of the World Figure Skating Championships, by Ryan Stevens, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book starts in the 1800 to present day listing the world Championship winners, thru out the years. I thought this was a good read, thought it was a little dry with just listing the winners.

As an ex-figure skater, it's something that still interests me to this day and I like to think I do a good job of keeping up. When I seen this book, immediately knew I had to pick it up. This is a full history of the world figure skating championships. It lists the results from beginning to now, as well as facts, records, and images.

This was definitely well put together. It was organized into sections, which I appreciated, and each year was clearly marked. I also really enjoyed the facts and tidbits of information- Even though I thought I was well versed in figure skating, there was a lot I didn't know, especially back in the early days of the championships. Canadian skaters are also bolded, making them easier to pick out. It was fun picking out the names I recognized and ones I hadn't previously heard of.

My biggest issue with this one was that 90% of the book was simply results being listed. While it's definitely great to have all the information in one place, and I think it would make a great reference book to own, it wasn't what I expected or wanted. I would have loved to see more facts and history included, espeically about specific skaters and different milestones/records. There is so much history surrounding the world figure skating championships and I feel like a lot of that was glossed over.