Customer Reviews

Thinning the Herd: Tales of the Weirdly Departed

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

...Because"Thinning the Herd" by Cynthia Ceilan would certainly deserve such a ranking..If this isn't among the most badly researched,ineptly written books of its kind than I don't know what is..Much of what Ceilan reports as fact ISN'T ! To give JUST A FEW examples;
On page # 56 Ms. Ceilan makes the following observation about Oliver Cromwell.."Two and a half years after the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658 he was exhumed,tried,found guilty of treason AND EXECUTED ALL OVER AGAIN.."..the fact is that Cromwell died of illness while still a power in Great Britan,and was not "executed"...except of course after he was already dead and the monarchy had been restored
On page # 51 ms.Ceilan writes that Zachary Taylor,12th president of the united states "..Died of uncontrollable diarrhea"..the facts,such as they are known,suggest typhoid fever,however it was long thought that Taylor may have been poisoned..this led to a 20th century exhumation of his corpse which disproved the poisoning stories.."uncontrollable diarrhea"while it MAY have been a contributing factor in Taylor's final illness has not been claimed by any reputable historian to be the cause of his death
On page # 46 ms Ceilan writes that Ohio politician Clement Vallandigham accidentally shot himself to death in 1846..Curious how a man who died in 1846 could be declared a hostile"copperhead" by the Lincoln administration in the 1860s and exiled to confederate territory because of this
On page # 43 ms Ceilan writes that noted mobster Al Capone died of syphills"while serving time in a maximum security prison"when in fact he died of this illness at his vacation home in Florida..
These are just four examples of Ms Ceilan's shoddy and inept research..The 300 plus page book is filled with other examples too numerous to mention..And not all of Ms.Ceilan's subjects are known historical personalities,whose lives and deaths are easily checked out..Many of Ms.Ceilan's choices involve obscure individuals whose main claim to fame,such as it is,relates to thier bizarre deaths..but given Ms.Ceilan's slipshod research involving known historical persons one can only speculate as to how often Ms.Ceilan got the facts involving the deaths of these otherwise unknown individuals WRONG...
While the book is entertaining,in its own macabre way,it is far from accurate and for this reason it deserves no stars.

Imagine my surprise to find my uncle's name in "Thinning the Herd." I am a niece of Second Lieutenant Lloyd "Pete" Herbert Hughes. This is the entire paragraph found on Pete on page 86 of this book:

"Medal of Honor winner Lloyd Hughes, a B-24 bomber pilot during World War II, managed to destroy enemy oil refineries in Romania even though his plane was severely damaged in the battle. He returned to the base a hero, but his plane exploded on landing."

The author got a few things right, but to be included in "Thinning the Herd" she could have at least gotten the way he died correct, which was not returning to base a hero only to have his plane explode on landing. First of all, Pete was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. He was a Medal of Honor recipient, not a "Medal of Honor winner." Secondly, he did not return to base.

Second Lieutenant Lloyd "Pete" Herbert Hughes was a 22 year old pilot when he flew his fifth and last bombing mission in the Ploesti Raid, an extremely low level bombing mission over the Campina oil refinery, labeled "Red Target." Campina was about 18 miles north of Ploesti, Romania. He died while trying to land his bomber in the dry river bed of the Prahova River. Six men died in the crash, two died of their wounds soon after and two were taken prisoner. They were the brave, young crew of a B-24 D heavy bomber, air craft number 42-400753 J, nicknamed "Ole Kickapoo." They were in the Army Air Forces, 9th Air Force, 2nd Air Division, 389th Bomb Group, 564th Squadron.

Quoting his Medal of Honor citation:
"With full knowledge of the consequences of entering this blazing inferno when his airplane was profusely leaking gasoline in two separate locations, 2d Lt. Hughes, motivated only by his high conception of duty which called for the destruction of his assigned target at any cost, did not elect to make a forced landing or turn back from the attack. Instead, rather than jeopardize the formation and the success of the attack, he unhesitatingly entered the blazing area and dropped his bomb load with great precision. After successfully bombing the objective, his aircraft emerged from the conflagration with the left wing aflame. Only then did he attempt a forced landing, but because of the advanced stage of the fire enveloping his aircraft the plane crashed and was consumed. By 2d Lt. Hughes' heroic decision to complete his mission regardless of the consequences in utter disregard of his own life, and by his gallant and valorous execution of this decision, he has rendered a service to our country in the defeat of our enemies which will everlastingly be outstanding in the annals of our Nation's history."

If the author, editors and publishers got this basic information wrong on a Medal of Honor recipient, I wonder what else in this book is incorrect, unchecked or outright fabricated.

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1576
http://www.rajordan.com/pete/

For all of those with a slightly offbeat sense of humor, Cynthia Ceilan's book is required reading! Within the book's 290-odd pages you will meet some of the dimmest bulbs, unluckiest people and assorted oddballs who ever danced with death - and usually lost!

Ceilan looks at death in a dozen chapters, the titles of which give the reader an inkling of what they're about to read, to wit: 'Inescapable Destiny,' 'So sexy it hurts,' 'It seemed like a good idea at the time,' 'Death's little ironies' and so on.

For example, readers are introduced to the couple who crawled into a deflated helium balloon for some kinky sex. They were found the next morning dead from helium poisoning. Or the drunk who decided to scare the hiccups out of his nephew by pointing a loaded handgun at him. The cure worked...a bit too permanently however. Or the Polish gentleman who was so afraid of being burglarized that he booby-trapped every part of his house. He died when he opened his garage door. Yup, he had bobby-trapped that as well! And then there's the Englishman who accidentally set himself on fire while burning some brush. He put the flames out by jumping in a nearby river. However he couldn't swim and...

Celian's book is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Many times, even as you're thinking "Oh, that's awful," you're marveling - and even chuckling - at how dumb or thoughtless or unlucky some people can be. Some of the stories deal with people's premonitions of death, deathly coincidences, etc. so THINNING THE HERD casts its net pretty widely. But it's all interesting.

Funny in its own right; maybe not for everyone. Recommended.

I couldn't believe that the first thing I quoted from this book was proven wrong.

The book claims "General John Sedgwick, Union commander, was killed in battle during the U.S. Civil War. His last words were, 'They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist---'"

At the Sedgwick Genealogy web site, it states: As the bullets whistled by, some of the men dodged. The general said laughingly, "What! what! men, dodging this way for single bullets! What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." A few seconds after, a man who had been separated from his regiment passed directly in front of the general, and at the same moment a sharp-shooter's bullet passed with a long shrill whistle very close, and the soldier, who was then just in front of the general, dodged to the ground. The general touched him gently with his foot, and said, "Why, my man, I am ashamed of you, dodging that way," and repeated the remark "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." The man rose and saluted, and said good-naturedly, "General, I dodged a shell once, and if I hadn't, it would have taken my head off. I believe in dodging." The general laughed and replied, ``All right, my man; go to your place." For a third time the same shrill whistle, closing with a dull, heavy stroke, interrupted our talk when as I was about to resume, the general's face turned slowly to ice, the blood spurting from his left cheek under the eye in a steady stream. He fell in my direction ; I was so close to him that my effort to support him failed, and I fell with him."

As this is apparently not the only incorrect "fact" in this book, it is obvious that Cynthia Ceilan did very little research in producing this piece of ... uh ... misinformation.

I bought this book about a month ago and I have already read it and loaned it to 3 people who were dying to read it after just reading small tid bits of it. It's dark humour and short tales made it easy and fun to read even when I didn't have much time. I understand that some of what the writer wrote was not completely accurate, however whatever was true was extreamly entertaining and one of my favorite books I've read lately.

I picked up this book and laughed from page one all the way through the end. If you think the Darwin Awards are funny, you'll love this!

Thinning the Herd is a great laugh. The book is filled with very-short to fairly-short vignettes about all sorts of people throughout history who died strange deaths. The problem, as other reviewers have pointed out, is that some of Ceilan's research appears to come from the urban legend school of scholarship. In some other cases, such as Clement Vallandigham's accidental self shooting while preparing a dramatic presentation for a court case, the details are substantially historically correct, but the date is wrong by a quarter century. So, as a piece of pop scholarship, Thinning the Herd deserves one or maybe two stars; however, as a side-splitting collection of vignettes of macabre humor, it is well worth the current going price and deserves four or five stars.

I got this book from the library, and I hope to buy it soon. I loved it! I read it from cover to cover, often reading out loud to my husband and mother-in-law. Each story is wittily written, and it makes me a little more comfortable about a dark and foreboding subject. And if you ever want to convince someone that suicide is not the answer tell them to read this book. I've already got a number of people lined up to check it out once I take it back.

I loved this book! It was actually morbidly funny. I loved it so much that I passed it on to my mother-in-law who loved it too...

This is an excellent and well researched book that covers a topic that is somewhat morbid but Ceilan brings a lively wit to the table. If you are going to go out in a weird and strange manner you would want her to hail your spirit off this mortal coil. A great, lively, and excellent read!