The Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action (Hardcover)

by Wendy Northcutt (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Warning: The Darwin Awards are not for the tenderhearted. The vastly popular Web site, now a book, recognizes "individuals who ensure the long-term survival of our species by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion." Who wins a Darwin Award? Terrorists who set their bombs on daylight saving time and delivered them on standard time, blowing themselves up. Folks who put garlands around a Bengal tiger's neck. Guys in Cambodia who took turns stomping on a land mine they'd brought into a bar. The six Egyptians who drowned trying to rescue a chicken that fell into a well. (The chicken alone survived.) The Buenos Aires husband who threw his wife out an eighth-floor window during a spat, noticed she'd gotten caught in power lines, and jumped after her, "angrily trying to finish the job, or remorsefully hoping to rescue her." He went splat; she escaped unscathed. There are some urban legends, like the sergeant said to have attached a Jet-Assisted Take-Off unit to his Chevy and hit a cliff 125 feet up (not true, says author Wendy Northcutt), and all-too-true honorable mentions, like the man who put weather balloons on his lawn chair, soared to 16,000 feet, crashed into power lines, blacked out Long Beach, California, and told police, "A man can't just sit around." My favorite winner: the man who was bitten nine times by the same king brown snake because he put it in a bag on his car seat and kept sticking his hand back into the bag. Why did he pick up the snake with his left hand? "Because I was holding a beer in my right one." And where did this take place? In Darwin, Australia. If you think somebody up there doesn't have a wicked sense of humor, The Darwin Awards may change your mind. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly
Anyone who has e-mail has probably already been entertained by the Darwin Awards, honors that stand out from the miasma of e-humor for several reasons: they are often genuinely hilarious and they are supposedly true. For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are given to people, mostly now deceased, whose actions reveal an astounding lack of common sense. The awards go only to those who have either died or rendered themselves unable to breed, confirming Darwin's belief in the survival of the fittest. Among the winners: terrorists who set their bombs on daylight saving time and delivered them on standard time, thus blowing themselves up; and a lawyer who crashed through a skyscraper window while demonstrating its safety. The audiobook also contains an honorable mention category for those who survive their idiotic behavior. This set provides hours of bizarre yet disturbing listening, mostly drawn from the author's popular Web site, DarwinAwards.com. Jason Harris does an excellent job of reading each reported incident; basically, they sound like standup comedy: yarn after yarn of such astounding stupidity that one cannot help but laugh. The lack of common sense exhibited here is undoubtedly comical, but Harris's reading accentuates the fact that beneath the laughter lurks a kind of pathetic sadness. Based on the Dutton hardcover. (Sept.)n

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 327 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; 3rd edition (October 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525945725
• ISBN-13: 978-0525945727
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #684,457 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

123 of 134 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Documented Gallows Humor, November 5, 2000

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Before describing this book, let me just say that if you do not find death and mutilation humorous, avoid this book.

If you find fatal mishaps funny, you will enjoy the book greatly. In fact, this has to be the best book ever written about stupid ways to die and lose fertility. Anyone will feel smarter and better about themselves after reading these stories!

This book is about "celebrating self-removal of incompetent genetic material for the human race." In essence, the book proves that "common sense is not so common."

The book's premise is very well framed to put you in a humorous mood. The idea is that when people do stupid things that get them killed or keep them from having children, they thus perform a service by improving the gene pool for the remaining humans. Ms. Northcutt uses many witty quotes to emphasize this point, and establishes the mood well.

She has rules for these awards. To win the Darwin Award, you must (1) die or be unable to procreate, (2) show really bad judgment, (3) cause your own downfall, (4) have the ability to use sound judgment (are not permanently mentally impaired) and (5) have the incident verified by someone else. If you don't meet all these tests, you can still get an honorable mention, or be described as an urban legend or a personal account. I thought these distinctions made good sense, because the story's focus and credibility weighs heavily on the interest it creates for the reader drawn to this subject.

The stories are grouped around themes: comeuppances with animals, problems with relatives, criminal misadventures, problems with fire and explosives, fatal falls, military goofs, macho errors, unsafe sex, watery deaths, and genital-related stories. Some stories could have fit into four or more categories, so it must have been a challenge to fit everything into a group.

Here are a few of my favorite stories:

The couple who crashed their car driving at 80 miles an hour while having sex totally nude at the same time.

The chicken that fell down a well and was saved after six people drowned in the process.

The man who crushed out his cigarette in a pail of explosives, blowing them and him up.

The ex-firefighter arsonist who died while starting the fire that was designed to make him a hero so he could get his old job back.

The couple who left their car and went for a stroll amidst the tigers in an wild animal park, and served as tiger meat.

The man who threw his wife out the window where she stuck in some wires. He then jumped after her, missed the wires, and died. She was saved.

Three guys to stole a large pig, and strapped it in their truck. The pig's thrashing caused the truck to crash, and the three men died because they hadn't attached their own seat belts. The pig survived.

The man found nude, dead of hypothermia, in a killer whale pool at an amusement park.

The thief who had tilted a Coke machine to shake a free bottle out, and was crushed when the machine fell on him.

The woman who died of hypothermia and dehydration in a tent after starting a 21 day spiritual cleansing diet intended to free her from needing to eat food or drink liquids. She would get all of her nutrition from the atmosphere instead. You start with no food or water for 7 days, then go 14 days with only sips of water, then take nothing. Hmmm.

I rated the book down one star, though, because a lot of the seeming stupidity was probably related to partial accidents in stupid circumstances rather than complete intention. I found many of the stories possibly mischaracterized in this way. For example, one story has a man using electric current to kill fish. He then ends up in the pond (described as going in to get the fish) and dies from the current. Now, you can read that as not realizing that electric current could kill him, or you can read that as he accidentally fell overboard before turning the current off. Now, in either case, I don't recommend this as a way to fish, but the story doesn't ring true as the "funny" story it is portrayed to be.

I also suspect that a lot of these stories have an unreported connection to alcohol or substance abuse. The verification in many cases is after the fact or is in a publication (which may have an incentive to "improve" the stories to make them better, and sell more issues), which probably adds to the tendency for "stupidity" bias in the interpretations.

After you finish having a good laugh, I suggest that you consider how you may put yourself into a dangerous situation that could make you a candidate for this award. For example, do you ever drive or pilot a plane while under the influence? Do you ever go near open windows in high places when you are unsteady?

I suspect that most of us have some foolishness that we need to eliminate if we want to avoid these awards. In my case, I think I need to be more careful when using equipment. I tend to go the fast route, rather than the safest one. I'm going to slow down and be safer in the future.

May all of your "hang man" experiences be on paper!

47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So hilarious I laughed till my sides hurt., October 22, 2000

By A Customer

I bought this book for my teenage son for his birthday -- he is a big fan of the related http://www.darwinawards.com website. Before I wrapped it, I read the inside flap and was completely drawn in by the concept: namely, how fatally dumb people can be. Once I started reading the book I couldn't put it down. It is THAT funny. There are some cautionary tales, of a rather gruesome nature, that impulsive types (such as my son!) should take heed of. Perfect for teenagers, and the teenager in all of us!

69 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Careful how you read this, December 7, 2000

By	Marcy L. Thompson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book is full of amazing anecdotes. Some of them are gut-bustingly funny. Some hurt just to read. I really enjoyed this book. So, I started its rating as 5 stars. However, I had three complaints, each of which lost the book a star.

First, the book categorizes stories as "Confirmed by Darwin" and "Not confirmed by Darwin". However, even some of the not confirmed stories have citations to newspapers and other seemingly impeccable sources. It would have been very nice to have an appendix which indicated how the confirmed ones had been confirmed. (Down to 4 stars.)

Second, the introductions to the chapters are not terribly well-written. They aren't awful or anything, but they do contrast with the crisply-written stories themselves. Moreover, some of these introductions are *real* stretches. The contortions at the end of these particular introductions to make them seem connected to the stories in the chapter made me roll my eyes. These would have been better omitted, or turned into interludes, or something. (Down to 3 stars.)

Third, the book seemed like a huge plug for the website. Yes, I realize this material started out in email and morphed into a website, and there really is some interesting additional information on the website. However, I think the book has considerable general appeal, and tying it that closely to the web makes it less appealing as a present for technophobes who appreciate this kind of humor. (Down to 2 stars.)

In the end, I'm giving it one star back because it really is good fun. (Finished at 3 stars.)

Warning: don't read more than five or six stories in one sitting. They lose something when they are bunched together.