You Can't Be Too Careful: Cautionary Tales for the Impetuous, Curious, and Blithely Oblivious [Paperback]

David Pryce-Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 1992

A heavy drinker decides to cut down his alcohol intake-and dies of a heart attack caused by alcohol withdrawl. Then there's the murderer who was accidentally electrocuted sitting on his prison cell's steel toilet--just after escaping the electric chair on appeal. You can't be too careful, not in a universe that began with a random Big Bang and whose only certainty is accident.

A collection of cautionary tales gathered for years by David Pryce-Jones and illustrated with characteristic wit and precision by Pierre Le-Tan, these are succinct items whose very matter-of-factness seems to reinforce the utterly bewildering nature of life and death, the unlikely, improbable, unexpected way in which lives are swallowed up-this is the human comedy as one-liners, each with a wondrous and terrifying grain of truth about our existence.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

FALLING FLOWERPOTS, SLIPPERY SOCKS, THE FATAL TOOTHPICK . . . ACCIDENTS HAPPEN.

"You can't be too careful." It's the last true maxim for a world that began with a random Big Bang and whose only certainty is accident. If you don't believe it, consider what happened to faith-healer Alan N., who died after tripping over his healing stool. Or Mrs. B., drowned while trying to save the goldfish in her frozen pond. Collected here are dozens of reminders of fate's unfathomable purpose-glimpses of the wonderful and terrifying human comedy, each revealing an unexpected truth about our existence.

About the Author

David Eugene Henry Pryce-Jones (b. 15 February 1936 Vienna, Austria) is a conservative British author and commentator.

He was educated at Eton and read History at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied under A.J.P. Taylor. His relationship with Taylor was very antagonistic, with the two frequently getting into shouting matches.

He did his National Service in the Coldstream Guards, in which he was commissioned in 1955, promoted Lieutenant in 1956, and served in the British Army of the Rhine. He has worked as a journalist and author. He was Literary Editor at the Financial Times 1959-61, and The Spectator from 1961-63.

Pryce-Jones currently works as senior editor at National Review magazine. He also contributes to The New Criterion and Commentary, and for Benador Associates. Pryce-Jones often writes about the contemporary events and the history of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and intelligence matters.

His most recent book, Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews has accused the French government of being anti-Semitic and pro-Arab, and of consistently siding against Israel in the hope of winning the favour of the Islamic world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (January 10, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563051567
• ISBN-13: 978-1563051562
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,455,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Wickedly funny, February 2, 2007

By 

Joseph Davis (Calgary, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: You Can't Be Too Careful: Cautionary Tales for the Impetuous, Curious, and Blithely Oblivious (Paperback)

This wonderful little book is a collection of vignettes gleaned from newspaper clippings about accidental deaths of all varieties. As the author points out in his introduction, life is largely just a collection of accidents, the majority of which are mundane. But every once in a while an accident will have an aspect of the tragic or the comic about it. Very rarely the two will both be present, and it is in the presentation of these strange and ironic events that the book achieves a type of high art. It is not enough to be concerned about accidental death, one also has to worry about how one dies, lest the memory of one's death elicit chuckles, snickers or outright hysteria, instead of sighs or respectful platitudes. Many of the catalogued deceased were silly, careless, clumsy, or even stupid, but many were just unlucky - in the wrong place at the wrong time, when death came calling. It could have been you, or, much worse, me. In these cautionary tales ordinary everyday objects like toothpicks, ice cream, buttons, rings, potted plants, kittens, etc. , are shown to have sinister, deadly potential. Below are a few of my favourite entries. Read and beware:

-A couple's lovemaking on top of a 220-foot cliff ended in death for one of them, an inquest at Newport, Isle of Wight, was told. They were kissing, cuddling, and rolling about when Mr Michael R. rolled over the cliff edge. 'Michael was alongside me, and in due course, on top of me,' Mrs C. said. 'We had not had sex, but we were contemplating it. About that time he appeared to slip away from me. He did not make any sound at all. I think he may have rolled over a couple of times. I grasped hold of the grass to stop myself from slipping over. I managed to look over the cliff and saw he had gone down feet first with his arms in the air, and then out of sight.'

-A 34 year old man from died of blood poisoning in Varna, Bulgaria, after his wife, who had eaten contaminated fish, playfully bit the lobe of his ear.

-Nine people died in Ho Chi Minh City after a bridge collapsed under the weight of a fifty-strong crowd that had gathered to watch a girl commit suicide. The girl was rescued.

-Mr David G. of Bristol broke his neck when he dived from Torquay Pier into eighteen inches of water. He failed to notice that the tide had gone out.