What Would MacGyver Do?: True Stories of Improvised Genius in Everyday Life [Hardcover]

Brendan Vaughan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 2006

In the spirit of the bestselling Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook comes a clever collection of true stories celebrating real-life “MacGyverisms”

You’re driving on a deserted road when your car dies. Your cell phone isn’t getting service. All you have on hand are a gum wrapper and a wire hanger.

Or maybe you’re living in a building without central air conditioning in July. You can’t afford an AC; all you have access to are a fan and a bucket of water.

In such times of desperation, many have called upon the symbol of all that is inventive, the hero who awed thousands with his cool, quick wit: What would MacGyver do? they ask..

For anyone who’s ever wished they could channel the 1980s action-adventure icon comes this clever collection of forty-five true stories, commemorating the use of improvised genius to solve everyday problems. Inspired by television’s Angus MacGyver (played by Richard Dean Anderson), a secret agent who relied on his brains and scientific prowess—not to mention duct tape and a Swiss Army knife—to save the day, the “MacGyverisms” recounted range from the concrete (using Chex Mix to provide traction in an icy parking lot) to the intangible (saving a relationship with the perfect turn of phrase). Edgy, entertaining, and smirk-to-yourself funny, these masterfully told stories reveal that, with a little luck and a lot of ingenuity, you can “MacGyver” yourself out of virtually any predicament.

Editorial Reviews

Review

What Would MacGyver Do? collects real-life tales of ingenuity with everyday objects. (Entertainment Weekly) Before CSI, there was Angus MacGyver... What Would MacGyver Do? features [true stories] of MacGyver-esque ingenuity. (New York Post)

About the Author

Brendan Vaughan is an articles editor at Esquire magazine and the winner of a National Magazine Award for New Media.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Hudson Street Press (October 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594630240
• ISBN-13: 978-1594630248
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #676,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book is a FRAUD - consider carefully before purchasing, March 12, 2007

By 

BEAR (Audubon, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Would MacGyver Do?: True Stories of Improvised Genius in Everyday Life (Hardcover)

Great Idea, terrible execution. I've never written an Amazon Book Review before but I was so disappointed in this book that I just had to write this and warn others. If I paid $[...] for this book, the author and publisher would owe me about $[...]. This book is almost 90% fluff stories which bear almost no resemblance to a clever McGyver story. The content seems to have been submitted largely by writer wanna-be's not clever real world McGyver's. I forced myself to finished the book just so I could feel justified in writing such a bad review. The book is not written badly, the stories are light and easy to read but - I have no idea what anyone was thinking who decided some of these stories had anything to do with McGyver example: [My boyfriend started freaking out on a plane after some turbulence so I asked the big guy in the row behind me to subdue my boyfriend] - that's it no clever solution. Many of the stories are similarly off-base in trying to claim to be McGyver-esque. Yes their are a handful of stories which met my expectations about the type of content and story - but these were very few, far between, and not particularly clever. The worst part about this book is it took a rather excellent premise and ruined it.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Huge disappointment, April 18, 2007

By 

J. D. Wolter (Berea, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Would MacGyver Do?: True Stories of Improvised Genius in Everyday Life (Hardcover)

I originally listened to the book as an audiobook. This one was so bad, I borrowed the hardcover book from the library so I could go over it for this review. This book claims to be stories of improvised genius. Far too many of these stories disappoint. The editor introduces each chapter with a preview that adds little to the work.

Here are some examples from the book which are NOT "Improvised Genius":

The car's exhaust system is dragging on the ground, so you contemplate using a coat hanger to tie it up. Instead, a construction worker cuts it off for you using an acetylene torch.

The power button for your computer breaks off the motherboard, so you glue it back on with Super Glue.

You forget to set the parking brake on your rental truck, so you chase it down and manage to set the brake just before it reaches the neighbor's lawn.

You steal a cup of ice from the convenience store next door so your drinks can be properly chilled.

You are asked by an editor friend to come up with a true story of improvised genius, but you can't think of one, so instead you write about not coming up with one, offering a story you made up based on a synopsis of MacGyver episodes you read on the Internet.

And finally, a story that this reviewer made up:

You're a New York editor, who has sold a book idea about "improvised genius" to your publisher. You build a website, soliciting stories, but the stories you get are either not very good examples of "improvised genius" or not well written, or both. So you turn to all your writer friends and pester them for stories. Most of the stories aren't very good examples of IG, but they are well written, so you use them.

Improvised? Yes. Genius? No.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horribly Misleading, February 1, 2007

By 

J. B. Land - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Would MacGyver Do?: True Stories of Improvised Genius in Everyday Life (Hardcover)

This book is a total let-down. The supposed MacGuyverisms are few and far between, and the best "Stories of Improvised Genius" just amount to execises in common sense. The author should be ashamed for using such a gimmick for a book of brief, mostly dull anecdotes.