Customer Reviews

The Darwin Awards : Evolution In Action

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Before describing this book, let me just say that if you do not find death and mutilation humorous, avoid this book.

If you find fatal mishaps funny, you will enjoy the book greatly. In fact, this has to be the best book ever written about stupid ways to die and lose fertility. Anyone will feel smarter and better about themselves after reading these stories!

This book is about "celebrating self-removal of incompetent genetic material for the human race." In essence, the book proves that "common sense is not so common."

The book's premise is very well framed to put you in a humorous mood. The idea is that when people do stupid things that get them killed or keep them from having children, they thus perform a service by improving the gene pool for the remaining humans. Ms. Northcutt uses many witty quotes to emphasize this point, and establishes the mood well.

She has rules for these awards. To win the Darwin Award, you must (1) die or be unable to procreate, (2) show really bad judgment, (3) cause your own downfall, (4) have the ability to use sound judgment (are not permanently mentally impaired) and (5) have the incident verified by someone else. If you don't meet all these tests, you can still get an honorable mention, or be described as an urban legend or a personal account. I thought these distinctions made good sense, because the story's focus and credibility weighs heavily on the interest it creates for the reader drawn to this subject.

The stories are grouped around themes: comeuppances with animals, problems with relatives, criminal misadventures, problems with fire and explosives, fatal falls, military goofs, macho errors, unsafe sex, watery deaths, and genital-related stories. Some stories could have fit into four or more categories, so it must have been a challenge to fit everything into a group.

Here are a few of my favorite stories:

The couple who crashed their car driving at 80 miles an hour while having sex totally nude at the same time.

The chicken that fell down a well and was saved after six people drowned in the process.

The man who crushed out his cigarette in a pail of explosives, blowing them and him up.

The ex-firefighter arsonist who died while starting the fire that was designed to make him a hero so he could get his old job back.

The couple who left their car and went for a stroll amidst the tigers in an wild animal park, and served as tiger meat.

The man who threw his wife out the window where she stuck in some wires. He then jumped after her, missed the wires, and died. She was saved.

Three guys to stole a large pig, and strapped it in their truck. The pig's thrashing caused the truck to crash, and the three men died because they hadn't attached their own seat belts. The pig survived.

The man found nude, dead of hypothermia, in a killer whale pool at an amusement park.

The thief who had tilted a Coke machine to shake a free bottle out, and was crushed when the machine fell on him.

The woman who died of hypothermia and dehydration in a tent after starting a 21 day spiritual cleansing diet intended to free her from needing to eat food or drink liquids. She would get all of her nutrition from the atmosphere instead. You start with no food or water for 7 days, then go 14 days with only sips of water, then take nothing. Hmmm.

I rated the book down one star, though, because a lot of the seeming stupidity was probably related to partial accidents in stupid circumstances rather than complete intention. I found many of the stories possibly mischaracterized in this way. For example, one story has a man using electric current to kill fish. He then ends up in the pond (described as going in to get the fish) and dies from the current. Now, you can read that as not realizing that electric current could kill him, or you can read that as he accidentally fell overboard before turning the current off. Now, in either case, I don't recommend this as a way to fish, but the story doesn't ring true as the "funny" story it is portrayed to be.

I also suspect that a lot of these stories have an unreported connection to alcohol or substance abuse. The verification in many cases is after the fact or is in a publication (which may have an incentive to "improve" the stories to make them better, and sell more issues), which probably adds to the tendency for "stupidity" bias in the interpretations.

After you finish having a good laugh, I suggest that you consider how you may put yourself into a dangerous situation that could make you a candidate for this award. For example, do you ever drive or pilot a plane while under the influence? Do you ever go near open windows in high places when you are unsteady?

I suspect that most of us have some foolishness that we need to eliminate if we want to avoid these awards. In my case, I think I need to be more careful when using equipment. I tend to go the fast route, rather than the safest one. I'm going to slow down and be safer in the future.

May all of your "hang man" experiences be on paper!

I bought this book for my teenage son for his birthday -- he is a big fan of the related http://www.darwinawards.com website. Before I wrapped it, I read the inside flap and was completely drawn in by the concept: namely, how fatally dumb people can be. Once I started reading the book I couldn't put it down. It is THAT funny. There are some cautionary tales, of a rather gruesome nature, that impulsive types (such as my son!) should take heed of. Perfect for teenagers, and the teenager in all of us!

The book is full of amazing anecdotes. Some of them are gut-bustingly funny. Some hurt just to read. I really enjoyed this book. So, I started its rating as 5 stars. However, I had three complaints, each of which lost the book a star.

First, the book categorizes stories as "Confirmed by Darwin" and "Not confirmed by Darwin". However, even some of the not confirmed stories have citations to newspapers and other seemingly impeccable sources. It would have been very nice to have an appendix which indicated how the confirmed ones had been confirmed. (Down to 4 stars.)

Second, the introductions to the chapters are not terribly well-written. They aren't awful or anything, but they do contrast with the crisply-written stories themselves. Moreover, some of these introductions are *real* stretches. The contortions at the end of these particular introductions to make them seem connected to the stories in the chapter made me roll my eyes. These would have been better omitted, or turned into interludes, or something. (Down to 3 stars.)

Third, the book seemed like a huge plug for the website. Yes, I realize this material started out in email and morphed into a website, and there really is some interesting additional information on the website. However, I think the book has considerable general appeal, and tying it that closely to the web makes it less appealing as a present for technophobes who appreciate this kind of humor. (Down to 2 stars.)

In the end, I'm giving it one star back because it really is good fun. (Finished at 3 stars.)

Warning: don't read more than five or six stories in one sitting. They lose something when they are bunched together.

This is one of those books that you want to loan to friends (or buy as a gift -- perhaps using the money in the "stupid tax" jar in the kitchen).

I'd been reading the annual awards on the Net for years, and mailing the funniest ones to friends; the tale of the man who welded cargo plane takeoff-assist jets to his car is so outlandish as to not be believed -- and apparently, shouldn't be, so take some of these stories with a grain of salt, even when they're purported to be true.

We all love to read about people from the "shallow end of the gene pool"; it makes us feel that perhaps we're not as dumb as we worry we might be. If you've ever thought about doing just about anything listed in this book...well, um...maybe we'll see you in the next edition.

The Darwin folks have been doing fine, fine work for years, and it's good to see a payoff for them, especially when it's as funny as this. I think it could have been longer (or denser), but it's certainly a good value.

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!

Having read this book from cover to cover, it's perfect for both leaving on a coffee table or just in the "reading" room. Mine is located somewhere between the bathroom and the computer room as I keep re-reading it for inspiration.

The book has hundreds of humorous accounts about creative people that have met their most demise in some of the most idiotic approaches. Being one who almost earned an award myself (308), I find that it is far better to laugh and learn about how not to do something creative than to boldly go forth and learn nothing from the errors of others. Thus, for all other creative nuts out there besides me, I recommend this book, for it gives insight as to how a small spark of genius can backfire (or just plain explode), and take you with it.

Having a collection of the Darwin Awards is a wonderful idea, but it might have worked better if this had just been a collection of yearly lists marked by date, instead of a categorized mishmash with a lot of filler to puff it out to a more acceptable "book" size, so people will pay seventeen-nintey-five for it. The filler is written so poorly, it brings to mind high school essays that must be of a certain length, so they consist mostly of the same sentence written over and over, with slight word changes each time. Oh, and on page 14? It should be "one FEWER idiot." Just shows what kind of editing was going on over at Dutton.

Not to mention the fact that quite a lot of Urban Legends slipped by Northcutt and her editors. I realize she takes her information from newspapers, but newspapers make mistakes, and I was able to check on the Urban Legend status of suspicious stories by simply running key words through snopes website, sitting right here at my computer, so how hard would it have been for Northcutt to have done the same? I mean really, if she's writing for national publication?

That said, the whole concept of the Darwin Award is one of the great comedic efforts of our time. Not only that, it's found comedy, the best kind. Once I recovered from nit-picking, and got down to enjoying the book, I had a great time. This stuff is so funny, it can make the most intent cynic, or the most determined curmudgeon laugh. Yeah, we're laughing at people's misfortune; get over it. It's funny when the guy trips on the banana peel. When is it funny that your brother got into Harvard, or your neighbor won the lottery?

At least we're laughing at a distance. And who knows; maybe someday YOU'LL be in the book. Maybe I will. (nah.)

More than you might expect, this book is stuffed with stuff! It collates all the Darwin Awards emails you've ever gotten and more, labels 'em truth or fiction, and puts them right where you need them most -- on the toilet, on the train, in bed. I learned why farts are NOT deadly, why a polar bear swim IS, and what to do when you're being constricted by a snake (spew high-proof alcohol all over its maw.) Plus each chapter has a weird insight into what we might be evolving into, whether testosterone causes Darwins, and so on. One down side is that a few stories don't have references, and some are more macabre than funny. But still a must-have for anyone who thinks humans have a long way to evolve. This book proves it.

Wendy Northcutt had the imagination and good sense to start the Darwin Awards some years ago, and she's now compiled the best ones into a book. "The Darwin Awards" examines what Northcutt calls "the finest examples of evolution in action"--that is to say, just-plain-stupid folks who are killed (or sometimes just maimed) through direct result of their own stupidity. Northcutt's premise is based on the idea that these idiots have done the human race a favor by removing themselves from the gene pool.

Northcutt not only details some hilarious stories herein, she tells you whether or not they were "confirmed by the Darwin Awards" (most were) and what newspapers or magazines the original accounts appear in when the unfortunate event first took place. She also examines a number of remarkably resilient urban legends (remember the one about the guys, the dynamite, the iced-over lake, the SUV that hadn't yet been fully paid for, and the faithful dog?) and gives you her take on possible origins of the stories and what clearly makes them urban legends instead of true, out-and-out Darwin Award contenders.

This book is a laugh a minute. You will be astonished at some of the idiotic things people do without thinking--looking into a gas tank or a loaded gun with a lit match, trying to get fish by dropping live electrical wires into a lake (then wandering in to retrieve said fish without removing or turning off the wires), and so on and so on. What a guilty pleasure this book is!

At first I was amazed that the editor of this book had enough stories about stupid people killing themselves in stupid ways to make up a book of this size. But now I'm sure she had to cut some stories -- maybe she's saving them for the second edition. Some of these reports seem too ridiculous to be true. She's right, though -- we should thank these people for exiting the gene pool. How can we address humanity's greatest challenges -- starvation, human rights abuses, cures for disease -- when we kill ourselves trying to get into Metallica concerts for free?

This book's a pretty good bathroom reader, though it isn't without its problems. The introductions to each part are inane, and hardly relate to the material that follows. In some of the stories it isn't clear what happens to the people involved. Also, I think the book would have worked better with the urban legends collected in their own section instead of sprinkled throughout. Somehow, mixed in with true stories, they're given legitimacy.

Anyway, bring on volume II!