Rating: 
Summary: It's amazing we've survived at all!
Review: Anyone who has an internet account or e-mail has read about the Darwin Awards and marveled at the stupidity of our own race. While I'm sure each episode was tragic for those who knew and loved the Darwin Award winners, those of us who didn't cannot help but be amused by their exploits. It is not meant to be disrespectful to the dead and maimed, but only so the survivors might learn from the winner's mistakes (while, admittedly, having a giggle).Ms. Northcutt offers a comprehensive introduction explaining the criterion for the awards and the book's inclusions of nominees and urban legends. As you read the stories, you will be amazed at the lack of common sense employed by many of these people as they met their demise (or inability to reproduce). It is the perfect "bathroom book" and would make a great gift for anyone with a wry sense of humor!
Rating: 
Summary: Avoiding Fate
Review: We are all one step from looking ridiculous, all one heartbeat from death. It may be that we are at some level superstitious, believing that if we can feel superior to others we can keep the evil fates at bay. The day I fell off a skateboard, my students laughed and laughed (a skateboard, in a straight skirt and heels!), but I could have broken my neck instead of my wrist, so I just missed being a candidate for this book. And there were other occasions too embarrasssing to recount. Probably most of those who find this book hilarious have had some near misses, maybe some they didn't even notice. I would hang with John Donne "Each man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind". Those who think these tales of folly leading to a bad end are funny may be safe for the moment, but they are at risk in the next moment themselves. This book does not make me laugh. This book makes me sad, sad for the untimely deceased, sad for the self-satisfied fools who think these tales are funny.
Rating: 
Summary: I really enjoyed this book!
Review: Wendy Northcutt has done a great job of cutting the urban legends out and providing the reader with a nuts and bolts, "this really happened, so be afraid" kind of book! Please don't buy this book thinking it has anything to do with Darwinism. . . I hesitate to add that, but according to a friend at a book store, there have actually been people that held this belief. This book is about the odd, humorous and often bizarre ways that people, which should likely have been taken out of the gene pool anyway, have offed themselves (or come close to it). You will wonder if what you are reading is true, but Northcutt is careful to be VERY specific in the details, should you decide to check them out yourself! In the case of urban legends (stories of things that happened to your brother's girlfriend's Uncle's third cousin) Northcutt has included some that you've probably heard, and some that are regionally specific. (Yes, the man that tied balloons to a lawn chair and drifted thousands of feet in the air is true. . . The guy that strapped a rocket to his car-wheelchair-bike is not) Buy this book for humor value, if nothing else. I recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Repugnant
Review: These stories succeed only in making officious fun of sad human error. It's a book to make the self important even more arrogant. This book is depressing and its readership equally discouraging.
Rating:
Summary: How Not to Die
Review: For anyone who is disgusted by the vast number of stupid people they are surrounded by, then this book is for them. Perhaps it is rather grotesque to sit down and just read about morons getting themselves killed or injured, but on the same note, that's all that's on the evening news. This book is filled with marvelous accounts of people effectively removing themselves, and their stupidity, from the gene pool. It's refreshing, in a macabre sort of way, to know that some people don't remain on earth too long. This book will definitely be offensive towards some, and others might find it educational, and still others may just get a big laugh out of it. I found it to be the latter two. I found it was a bit spooky on how the author has the selection of Darwin Award Winners nailed down to a science. I can't help but wonder if the job of finding out how people die is a least a little mentally traumatic. Frankly, I wasn't surprised on how many different ways people manage to cut their lives short, it sort of reaffirmed my belief that everybody is inherently stupid, and most of us just get lucky for 70 or so years. Then again, this book also makes it painfully obvious that some individuals are infinitely more reckless and moronic than the majority of the planet's population. Overall, I thought this book plenty entertaining, and I learned I should not take what common sense I have for granted, as some people have far less than me, and for that I am grateful.
Rating:
Summary: As funny as a car wreck
Review: Stories of people killing themselves through carelessness is hardly an uplifting subject. What's required is a humorous slant to make an otherwise morbid subject entertaining. Unfortunately, this book lacks almost any trace of wit or insight and the treatment of its subjects is dry and even clinical. Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for laughing at the foibles and frailties (i.e., stupidity) of my fellow man. But pretty quickly into this book, you may find yourself wishing you had some Prozac. If you're the type of person who finds the obituaries section of your newspaper hilarious, you'll love this book. Otherwise you may want to pass.
Rating:
Summary: Lame
Review: My dislike of this book comes mainly from the really poor "verification" of the stories inside. For the editor to claim they are all verified and then not provide us with anything but the barest citations (in the best case -- no citations for many) really makes it hard to believe that very much of this ever happened. It's really not better than the lame e-mails that are endlessly forwarded around even after being shown to be urban legends. To make it worse, most of these aren't that funny. People are often dumb (see Eco's brief bit about the 5 types of idiots in _Foucault's Pendulum_ for a interesting look at how we all are at some point), but that doesn't make this book worthwhile. Read it in 10 minutes at some bookstore if you must, but don't waste your money.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious
Review: This was an incredibly funny book. It entertained my husband and I on a long car trip over the holidays. It's full of slapstick humor, as the title and description indicate. If you like the "stupid criminal file" stuff on the local news and other such "news of the weird" articles, you'll like this. If you don't like that stuff, you probably won't like this.
Rating: 
Summary: Guilty pleasure at best
Review: Coming from a family with a huge tendency towards schadenfreude, I thought this would be our kind of book. It is, but it's not a guiltless pleasure. I don't want people to DIE for their mistakes, for children to lose parents, wives to lose husbands (most of the Darwin Award winners are male). My humanity interfered with me totally enjoying this book. It made me sad. But my brother will love it; I'm sending it to him.
Rating:
Summary: Bloody Funny, Irreverent; and True
Review: I can see why members of the "Humans are Sacred" camp would be appaled by this book and by the Darwin Awards web site, but I found it both amusing, and enlightening. Why should Humans be held to gentler standards than the rest of the animal kingdom? If a snake chooses to sleep in the middle of the street, it's going to get run over. If a poodle chooses to jump out the 12th floor window, splat. Their stupidity is weeded out of the gene pool, and perhaps the next generation will be a little smarter and a little wiser for their absence.... Unfortunately, humans like to think they're special. They believe that they can escape 'surival of the fittest', and get very testy when someone dares to suggest that they can't. That's what the Darwin Awards do, and more power to them! Long live the Darwin Awards.
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