Customer Reviews

This Will Kill You: A Guide to the Ways in Which We Go

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This is a great little read--informative, irreverently funny, somewhat horrifying. Includes helpful cartoons. A wonderful asset if you're a writer, a horror fan, or just a trivia and reference lover. Also would be a great gift for the person in your life who has a morbid sense of humor.

HP Newquist and Rich Maloof have coauthored this little-known gem of a book which plays off something every person possesses to a certain degree: morbid curiosity. Humans are both repelled and fascinated by the subject of death, and the dual-aspect of this tendency lies at the core of the book. The authorial tone is equal parts wittiness and sober reflection on the grisly realities that we as humans must learn to face. The back of the book says that the content is "irreverent," but I think nothing could be further from the truth. If the authors laugh, it is not a laugh of defiance or of superiority. Rather, being oh-so-human themselves, they know that they are just as susceptible as the rest of humankind is to the things they explain in quite some detail in their book. The book IS very amusing, no doubt, but it gallows humor through and through. And this is the key to the work - they are not prison wardens laughing in the face of dangerous prisoners who are unable to harm them. Rather, they function similarly to Virgil in Dante's Inferno: they lead us down on a tour through the hellish fates that potentially await us at some point in the foggy future. Only this time Virgil has a great sense of humor to help prevent us from being overwhelmed by the horror before our eyes.

I make this sound dramatic, but it really isn't. For all the grimness of the material, it has one advantage: the lightness which comes with accepting inevitability. This is reflected somewhat in the book's structure. This is not one single narrative work, but a long series of short chapters, each devoted to a certain potential death. Chapters on average are a mere 3-4 pages in length, making this book ideal for short spurts of reading. If you are one of those people who likes to enjoy literature on the toilet, or in the bathtub, or while waiting in line at the post office, or while waiting outside your child's school to pick this up, you'll find that this becomes your best friend. But it is also enjoyable in long sessions. I gulped this book down in three days when I first got it... and I'm a slow reader!

The authors do a good job of balancing more gritty, day-to-day reality type of stuff like heart attacks, seizures, stabbing, and HIV/AIDS with much less common fates (note, for instance, that the book has chapters on what happens when a space suit malfunctions, what happens when you go over the Niagara Falls in a barrel, and what happens when you become the snack of a Komodo Dragon). The main portion of the book is introduced by a foreword and an introduction, both of which are worth reading. Perhaps the most appreciated touch in the book is an inclusion called "two-minute med school" where the authors explain all of the medical jargon they use throughout the rest of the book (specific causes of death in each scenario are explored very thoroughly).

Each chapter ends with a set of subsections which give information on a) what a scenario is termed scientifically, b) the medical cause(s) of death, c) the time you should reasonably expect to be killed if such a scenario were to occur, d) the types of people most likely to die in this manner, e) the overall statistical lethality of the situation, f) kills per annum, g) overall historical death toll that can be attributed to that scenario, h) well-known people who have perished in those circumstances, i) a subjective "horror factor" rating on how horrific such a death is, and j) "grim facts," which are little asides which couldn't be reasonably included in the main entry but are still interesting and still pertain to the method of death.

Credit must also be given to Jim Shinnick for the frequently hysterical illustrations he provides throughout the book.

This is the best find I've made in a long time. I very randomly happened to stumble across this in a bookstore, and it was love at first sight. Highly recommended to anyone with an overpowering curiosity and a strong stomach.

This book was so good I keep searching for more. And unlike most books, once you finish it, it's still useful to have around as a reference, and doesn't sit pointlessly on a shelf gathering dust. Highly recommend!

I love books like this. BUT if you have not yet read Dead Beat or Stiff try those first. This one is not really thorough in all it covers. It does give one enough information regarding how one can die. The rest could be extrapolated, I suppose.

I picked this book up on a day when I was bored... this book kept me thoroughly preoccupied. It is tongue in cheek, lighthearted information of various ways to die. It ranges from the normal -such as pneumonia- to the outrageous- space suit malfunction and burning at the stake. The information is excellent, as someone in the healthcare field I felt that the information was interesting enough to hold my attention without being over the top technical for the non-medical professional. Also interesting tidbits on how some famous people died. All and all very interesting and informative without being heavy or grusome. I would recommend this to anyone!

THIS WILL KILL YOU is an absolutely intriguing guide to the various ways homo sapiens can exit "this veil of tears." Authors H.P. Newquist and Rich Maloof dish up the facts on 76 - count 'em, 76! - ways to die ranging from black widow spiders to space suit malfunctions to gangrene. While some might find the topic morbid, I found it an entertaining and informative guide to a subject of importance to us all.

THIS WILL KILL YOU presents its magical misery tour contents alphabetically. The first entry is Alligators; the last, Working in a Coal Mine. Among the "ways to go" covered are Alzheimer's, Arsenic, Botulism, Burning at the Stake, the well-named Death Cap Mushroom, Binge Drinking, Ebola Virus, Going over Niagara Falls, the really revolting Guinea Worm, Hemlock, Komodo Dragon, Lions/Tigers/Bears, Nerve Gas, the Plague, Pufferfish, Radiation Exposure, Snakes, Stroke and Unscheduled Plane Landing. Each entry merits a four-page write-up with info on how that particular items kills, the medical cause of death, those at highest risk of dying from it, lethality, annual death tolls, historical death totals, notable victims, etc. Despite its grim subject matter, the tone is factual, straightforward and just a bit irreverant.

Each entry has an accompanying cartoon or two. If you're interested in photographs of what a victim of a shark attack, type 2 diabetes or syphilis looks like, this ain't the book for you; no pix!

All in all, I thought THIS WILL KILL YOU was - to borrow one of Mr. Spock's favorite words - fascinating. It might not be bedside reading but it is a great read. Recommended.

With the Mariana Trench's depth with which these authors detail demise, they fail to describe their own sunsets. Unless Newquist and Maloof are still living and guitar-slinging. They seem like nice guys.