Customer Reviews

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

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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.