Rating: 
Summary: The story of the Idiotics
Review: The Darwin Award is an incredible read. This book is a non-fiction book. It has tons of different stories that are hilarious and interesting. Since they are so funny you always want to know what the next story is going to be.
I think that Wendy Northcutt did a good job because she took in all the information and put it in categories with other stories that are similar to it. All the characters are similar because they all have died doing something stupid. For and example Like one of the stories is about two guys who get drunk on July 4 and were hungry and went to a pig farm and stole a 400 pound pig. But when they got the pig in the back of the truck it went crazy and the truck went rolling 40 feet and the two guys died. That is just one of the stories and there are many more.
The rating I would give this book is very good. I would recommend this to anybody who likes books that are very funny. It is also not very long at all. So if you want a very good read , read this.
Brett Beeler
Rating: 
Summary: Akin to eating a dozen glazed doughnuts in a single sitting
Review: Reading the "The Darwin Awards" is akin to eating a dozen glazed doughnuts in a single sitting. It's hard to get full and you know you that you really shouldn't finish the whole dozen. But you do. (The author uses an analogy with jellybeans, but I don't care for sugar in that density.)
The author, Wendy Northcutt, recognized this pitfall, and even stated "These stories aren't meant to be read all at once." But putting this collection of tales on the table top proves harder than expected. . .just one more, you think, then another, and well, you see how it goes.
Ms. Northcutt prefaces this collection of tales-some true and verified; some unverified submissions; some personal accounts; and, for fun, some relevant urban legend-with a synopsis of Darwin's somehow still controversial "theory" of evolution (when will we collectively abandon the notion that evolution is a theory; how the Internet shaped her work in collecting and verifying submissions for the Darwin Awards; and the criteria for determining the winners of this dubious honor.
Some may consider Ms. Northcutt's rather biting humor mean-spirited and cruel. Others find great humor at these mostly fatal tales marked chiefly by stupidity---those a measure of these doomed souls no doubt were ignorant of the potentially lethal consequences of their actions.
Regardless, "The Darwin Awards" might find a home in a beach house, on a book case in the basement, or even a treehouse. It doesn't merit shelf space with the literature lining the living room bookcase.
Rating: 
Summary: People are stupid. I don't need a book to tell me
Review: OK, hearing about one of the Darwin Award winners can be funny.
But there's only so much stupidity I can take at once.
My biggest problem with the book was that the WRITING wasn't funny. Too "just the facts" oriented to be entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: dark humor but gives you stories to talk about at parties
Review: At first I thought this book was going to be very funny. Or at least give me stories to share with my friends. The book even warns in the beginning not to read it like a regular book but rather to read a story here and there. So at first it was interesting to see how people do stupid things but after a while it got dark and depressing because everyone in the book must die of their stupidity to be eligiable for the book. The book was good in the way that it verified all stories so you know they are true. But this book is not for the faint at heart. This book would be great for that family member that we all have who has that dark cynical quirky sense of humor. Well I hope we all have one and I am not the only one who has one lol. It did give me some stories to tell at parties and social occasions.
Rating:
Summary: Mean-spirited
Review: This book is salt on the wounds of bereaved families. I don't think this book is a great book. I don't think there is kindness or humility in this book. You can decide on that. What I want to say is this book is salt on the wounds of bereaved families.
Rating: 
Summary: The Darwin Awards
Review: This book takes a look at human stupidity which either results in the stupid one's demise or at least sterilises them so that they can not reproduce. A lot of the tales in here are not confirmed and are written under urban legends. I have actually heard most of the urban legends before, some told a lot more funnier than in here. They are pretty funny though for example the scuba diver who was scooped up by a fire fighting plane and dumped on the middle of a fire. This book is divided up into eleven sections which group together deaths under specific headings. Unfortunately the writer seems to like to waffle on with boring introductions to each chapter. Obviously they have good research and collating skills but not such a good writing ability when it comes to being creative off thier own bat. You also have to get to page 32 before even getting to the first death tale which is a bit ridiculous. This is a good read but a bit of a let down. If you buy it expecting a few laughs you'll be satisfied but if you expect to be laughing your head off from cover to cover then maybe purchase something else. I've been told the sequels are a lot better, and this book was good enough to tempt me to read them and find out.
Rating:
Summary: Funny at times
Review: Charles Darwin's theory of the "survival of the fittest" implies, by extension, that idiots will die, thus the premise of this humorous volume. Wendy Northcutt has compiled a series of anecdotes of fatal stupidity, from the drunken pilot who took off with a gust lock in place to the prison guard falling through a skylight as he "supervised" conjugal visits. Many of these stories involve alcohol, which is not so much stupidity as it impairment. The story of a man awakened in the middle of the night by a phone and mistaking his bedside gun for a receiver speaks less of a lack of intelligence than it does nighttime confusion. Other anecdotes are truly hilarious in their lack of common sense. A person must die to be awarded a Darwin Award, so these stories aren't for the fainthearted. They have all been carefully documented to avoid inclusions of urban legends. Unfortunately, as a whole, the book is simply not as funny as the individual stories I used to receive in my inbox. Too many borderline anecdotes are included. Although this book makes a good gift for those who revel in the stupidity of others, don't expect laughs on every page.
Rating:
Summary: This is either hilarious or sickening.
Review: For those that enjoy macabre humor and find strange-but-true stories interesting, this book is indispensible. Otherwise, it depends upon whether you find the death of the fish farmer who harvests his fish by running electric current through his man-made pond, then wades into said pond before shutting off the current, or the energy plant employee who uses an coal furnace's conveyor as an exercise treadmill, as humouous or disgusting. One criticism: A sentence on the inside of the dust jacket mentions a story of a terrorist who opens, and detonates, his own mail bomb, after it was returned to him for insufficient postage. Although this story has been circulating the internet for some time (enter "Khay Rahmajet," the guy's name, on a search engine), it appears nowhere else in the book.
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