Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S. [Paperback]

Alex Boese (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2006

Can you grow a bonsai kitten? Should you stock up on dehydrated water? Is it easy to order human-flavored tofu? Or is this all just B.S.?

In a world of lip synching, breast implants, payola punditry, and staged reality shows, it's hard to know the real from the fake. Hippo Eats Dwarf is the essential field guide to today's Misinformation Age. Whether you're deciphering political doublespeak or trying to decide whether to forward that virus warning, hoaxpert Alex Boese provides the guidelines you need. For instance, Reality Rule 6.1: Just because you read it on the Internet doesn't make it true.

With case files, reality checks, definitions, and plenty of doctored photos, Hippo Eats Dwarf is an entertaining guide to life, death, eBay, and everything in between.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hoaxes are but one tile in the vast mosaic of mis- and disinformation detailed in this delicious compendium of fakery. The ones that Boese offers are a far cry from the classic deceptions spotlighted in his previous The Museum of Hoaxes; they're mainly smirky Internet pranks, like a fake CNN.com news report that fellatio protects against breast cancer. But Boese finds inexhaustible fodder for his theme of the ubiquitous fakery of modern life, including Enron-style business scams, lip-synching scandals, artificial flavors, mislabeled meats, doctored photos, covert marketing campaigns, celebrity plastic surgery and denials of surgery, breast implants, and that oldest of ruses, the fake orgasm. He also covers a smattering of conspiracy theories—from perennials like subliminal advertising and the "Paul is dead" rumor, to a recent Sudanese panic he dubs the "penis-melting Zionist robot comb"—proving that we are at our most gullible when we are most suspicious. Boese wittily tracks down the leads to establish the truth or—usually—falsehood behind the facade, and sprinkles in handy "Reality Rules" to bolster readers' defenses against nonsense, the most pertinent of which is, "[j]ust because you read it on the Internet doesn't mean it's true." Photos. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

From the author of the entertaining Museum of Hoaxes (2002) comes an even more entertaining follow-up. The book is a reasonably thorough, not to mention playful, guide to fakery. Advertising posing as legitimate news stories, nonexistent movie reviewers, fraudulent sales pitches, reality television, imaginary Internet bloggers, phony celebrities--they're all here, and plenty more, too. The book also features a series of "reality rules" (#5.2: should a suitably dramatic picture of a major event not exist, one will be created) and several "case files" that use real stories to illustrate various kinds of fakery (like the professor who fell for the Nigerian bank scam). Boese, a self--described "hoaxpert," keeps us on our toes by slipping in real-but-improbable events among the fakes and challenging us to see if we can tell the difference. All too often it's impossible to know whether something he describes is bona fide or bogus, and that's Boese's point: we need to stay on our toes, if we want to avoid getting fooled. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st edition (April 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156030837
• ISBN-13: 978-0156030830
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,047,114 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Glenside, Pennsylvania. Grew up in London and Washington DC. Graduated from Amherst College, and gained a Master's Degree in the History of Science from the University of California, San Diego.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The biggest hoax of all, March 8, 2006

By 

Nettie (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S. (Paperback)

Following the huge success of 'The Museum of Hoaxes' I waited in anticipation for the follow up, 'Hippo Eats Dwarf'.
However dear readers, I was shocked when I learned the horrible truth behind this book. Alex Boese DID NOT write this book. Nor did he even pen MoH.
The truth is, a team of highly trained monkeys have been working around the clock for the past two years, getting paid literally peanuts, to churn out yet another best seller.
I'll give you a minute to come to grips with this shocking news.
At first I was in denial, I felt cheated and gullible. However, after a while I began to realise just how wonderful this breakthrough was. If we can help these monkeys have a successful career just by buying their book, isn't that worth something? So buy this book now! Do your bit to help an underprivilged primate suceed in the cut throat publishing industry today.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, March 8, 2006

By 

Rita "Rita" (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S. (Paperback)

Reading this book was a life-changing experience for me. It made me reflect on my own life and say to myself "Wow...something has to change." And Alex Boese showed me how. I needed to pull more pranks and create more hoaxes.

As soon as I realized why I felt there was a hole in my life, I set immediately to fix it. That's where this book shined once again...it served as almost a guide, inspiring me on what pranks to pull. Creating fake mermaids, chain letters, stories about placing kittens in boxes...you should have seen me, I was on a roll!

Alex Boese is my hero. I know that this book will help bring about a change in anyone who reads it.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Such a waste., March 8, 2006

By 

Charybdis "Chary" (Arlington, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S. (Paperback)

Honestly, this book is far and away the worst book I've ever had the misfortune to kill someone with. It's construction is amatuerish in the extreme, for instance after only two blows the spine cracked and the pages started falling out. Honestly, I actually had to resort to using a bat to finish the bastard off, which tells me there are much better uses for trees than printing books such as this. Save yourself some money and purchase something by Robert Jordan instead. Those are some hefty, well crafted books that will endure hours of family violence. Hell, even if the repeated blows don't finish them off you can always resort to reading the damn thing to them, but that's a bit inhumane.