Rating: 
Summary: Funny for us, but I feel sorry for the graders
Review: Funny blurps, I just didn't give it a five because I wanted more!
Rating: 
Summary: Good fun.
Review: In case you thought your work was not worthy, a glance at this compilation of stuff turned in by other college students is bound to make you feel better. It might also make you laugh out loud. Not a bad deal then for a sawbuck.
Rating:
Summary: Gut-bustingly funny
Review: I read a news story with excerpts from this book, and I was almost afraid to order it, thinking perhaps that all of the funniest entries had been excerpted. Not even close. This book has lots and lots of good solid belly laughs.
And, when you read all these "I didn't know whether to laugh or cry" reviews, keep in mind that Henrikssen actually has some compassion for the students in question. He even includes a quiz in the end of the book designed to remind the reader how much he has forgotten (or never learned in the first place) about world history.
Rating:
Summary: I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!
Review: The premise of this book is rather simple, excerpts of horribly mangled history taken from college students' exam papers and reassembled as a history textbook, but the results are hysterical. I'm a history buff, as I expect most of the people drawn to this book will be, but there were some "facts" that were so badly mangled I couldn't even begin to guess what they were meant to refer to! The errors fell primarily into two categories, the grammatical and the idiotic. An example of the first would be, "Chairman Moo" or "Auto von Bismarck", and these are relatively funny, especially when one considers the context. However, it is the latter category, statements that are so divorced from fact as to be rendered absurd, that make this book painfully funny. Following are some of my favorite examples: *Men during this period were usually about thirty years old and women only twelve or thirteen.
*Death rates exceeded one hundred percent in some towns.
*Westward expansion ended at Custard's Last Stand and his later defeat at Wounded Knee.
*The Pershing Gulf War began when Satan Husane invaded Kiwi and Sandy Arabia. This was an act of premedication. ...and so on. One could probably take this as an indictment of the gross ineptitude of many of our nation's social studies teachers, and the gross indifference of their students, and one would probably be correct in doing so. That's not really what this book is about though, rather, it is about poking fun at the lack of historical grounding of supposedly educated people, with hilarious results. You have to laugh, because otherwise you'll cry, and this book is just too funny not to laugh.
Rating:
Summary: To laugh or to cry, that's the question
Review: I gave this to a friend for Christmas; both of us are editors. She declaimed it aloud while both of us laughed so hard our stomachs hurt. The only other option was to cry.
Rating:
Summary: Every 10 to 15 seconds you will erupt in a belly laugh.
Review: This book is great. Small and pretty quick read but worth every penny. Great gift for friend.
Rating:
Summary: great for laughs!
Review: I purchased this book as a Christmas gift for my husband who has his PhD. He LOVED it and we had a great time sharing it with our family at holiday time. Even my 12 year old got alot of laughs out of it and it also gave us an opportunity to discuss the correct facts with him!
Rating:
Summary: Warning! Don't read this book if you've recently had surgery
Review: ...because you'll bust your stitches. Neither should you attempt to read this while sitting alone in a crowded waiting room or train/plane. People will think you are nuts when you laugh out loud. I gave this book to my sophisticated collegiate son and even he couldn't keep a straight face for more than 5 pages. The maps at the end are worth the price of the book where you will see, for instance, that New England hangs just south of England in the Artic (which is designated the "Antarctica", complete with a "South Pole") and that Bermuda is in Northern Canada (aka USSR). You will also learn that the Alps are in Northern Africa and that the Amazon River flows through "Upper Lower Down Egypt." Please do read the author's opinion of his students toward the end of the book and try his quiz which will inspire your sympathy toward the students who provided the material for this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good academic humour
Review: This book is a quick read, but quite entertaining. From early history to modern times, it covers a wide range of mistakes and errors made by college students when writing about world history. Some of them are laugh-out-loud funny, while others a good for a small chuckle. I agree with a previous reviewer that this book is best in small doses. After a while the mistakes become a little weary, but I found if I took a break and read it later, the humour would return. You don't need to be particularly knowledgeable about world history, since most of the mistakes are blatantly obvious, but there are a few lines in which I didn't see any humour. Overall, it's good academic humour and a fun little book to read.
Rating:
Summary: Shockingly bad; shockingly funny
Review: Non Campus Mentis is hysterical. Every one of these essays is so full of misspellings, misquotes, malapropisms, and general mix-ups, that it's absolutely laugh-out-loud funny. I can't believe he could compile so many horrible essays into one book. I'm always laughing out loud (sometimes to the point of tears) when I'm reading this book. I highly recommend it, especially for those not long removed from (or still in) academia.
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