Cacas: The Encyclopedia of Poo [Hardcover]

Taschen America (Creator), Oliviero Toscani (Author)

Book Description

Series: Evergreen S. | Publication Date: November 1, 2000

From the moment we're born to the moment we die, we produce it. It's as natural as breathing. But many of us can't bear to look at it, touch it or smell it. We dispose of it behind closed doors, flush it down clean white toilets, don't mention it in polite company. It's one of "civilized" society's last taboos. Enough! It's the world's most underrated resource. We can cook with it, build with it, admire it, wear it. It's unique (no two examples are alike). It's as old as creation. It will never run out. It's time to celebrate shit.

Cacas, the first ever encyclopedia of shit, is a project of Colors. The magazine about the rest of the world, Colors has been on sale bimonthly since 1992 in 80 countries worldwide, in 8 bilingual editions: English paired with Italian, Japanese, Croatian, German, Spanish, Greek, Russian and French. As is the case with every issue of Colors, this book explores a single theme. And, as is the case with the magazine, the book Cacas exists thanks to United Colors of Benetton.
-- "All that glitters is not gold" Oliviero Toscani
-- Explores 68 different types of animal shit from Antelope to Zebra
-- A unique cultural anthropology about shit
-- Features interesting and fascinating stories around the most natural thing of the world

Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Taschen (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822858773
• ISBN-13: 978-3822858776
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 10 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,185,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Vile bile, March 18, 2004

By 

Shelley Gammon "Geek" (Kaufman, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cacas: The Encyclopedia of Poo (Hardcover)

This is certainly a coffee table book that will break the ice and get people talking, but perhaps not the best thing to read while eating chocolate bon-bons, fudge, or dark stew.

While it calls itself an encyclopedia, this is far from accurate. My high rating is for the superb studio photography and detail for each sample... but it loses a couple of stars on a number of fronts. The only readers of this book will be people, but people poo is hardly covered in detail. Why not a number of shots of different colors, shapes and sizes, describing what causes the various colors in each sample?

Then, on common pets such as cats and dogs, why not a variety there, to help diagnose illness?

It would seem that the authors could not decide whether this would be a commentary, a compendium or a comedy. The "s-word" and other colorful metaphors are used profusely for the sake of shock value, rather than for informative purposes. It's shocking to see such a nicely prepared volume with what appears to be such unprofessional language. It's not funny enough to be funny and not serious enough to be taken seriously.

It is interesting to see droppings from giraffes, monkeys, etc., but some of the animals mentioned are animals I have never heard of - and no picture of the animal itself is displayed.

This unusually themed book had a lot more potential than was reached by the authors. This is NOT a book for children, due to the comments in the book, but for kids who can't read, it might be a hoot at story time.

For the aspiring yet-to-be-published writer, this will certainly be an inspiration - if this poo can be published, than the world is your oyster.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Restroom Reading, May 1, 2001

By 

Ahmad Jordan "Ahmad Jordan" (Bufalo, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cacas: The Encyclopedia of Poo (Hardcover)

Colors Magazine and Toscani (formerly of Colors) have always been infamous for brewing trouble via their editorial content. Sometimes they touch upon mature topics such as aids, racism etc. But every so often the "Brat" in them comes out and brings us a book such as this one.

Of course, the first reaction is that it is a disgusting book that isn't worth the paper it's printed on (suprisingly, know one thought of printing it on toilet paper). But if you actually take the time to read the stories about "poo" from around the world you begin to find some really interesting content. In fact, the stories are what saves the book from being a cheap visual prank on the viewers eyes.

I also like the fact that each photograph of "poo" is labelled with the animal it came from (including humans).

If you can stomach such a book, I think it's a subject worthy of reading and digesting.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Covers it all., October 6, 2002

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cacas: The Encyclopedia of Poo (Hardcover)

Everything you ever wanted NOT to know. Actually not quite true because it is rather thin on the medical side of poo (illnesses and hospitals etc) and maybe that's a good thing too. Produced by the folks from `Colors' magazine (The United Colors of Benetton) this nicely designed book is full of one paragraph items, written in a straightforward style and thankfully avoiding any euphemisms. The editors must have wondered how on earth they were going to illustrate it? The neat solution was to get photographer Marirosa Ballo to train his lens on sixty-seven samples of animal droppings, reproduced here as cut-outs on the white page, nicely done too. Needless to say they vary enormously depending on the animals diet and lifestyle.

This quirky title is another addition to my (slowly) expanding shelf of bizarre books, it already has `A Handbook on Hanging' by Charles Duff (London 1928) `Frog Raising for Pleasure and Profit' by Albert Broel (New Orleans 1937) and `Car Crashes' by Mell Kilpatrick (Koln 2000) this last book is from the same publisher as 'Cacas'.