Cacas: The Encyclopedia of Poo (Hardcover)

by Colors Staff (Author), Oliviero Toscani (Author) "Etwa 50,000 mal vollziehen Sie in Ihrem Leben die folgende Prozedur: 1. Sie verdauen 95 Prozent der Nahrung, die Sie zu sich genommen haben..." (more)
Key Phrases: vos selles, les selles, des toilettes, Frost Box, Beaver City, Big Brother (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
THE AUTHORITATIVE COMPENDIUM OF SHIT FROM ANTELOPE TO ZEBRA

Excrement, alley apples, manure, poo poo, number 2, crap, caca, cow pies, meadow muffins, feces, turds or merde. From the moment we're born to the moment we die, we produce it. It's as natural as breathing, but we can't bear to look at it, touch it or smell it. We produce it behind closed doors, dispose of it down clean white toilets, and never mention it in polite company. It's one of "civilized" society's last taboos. Enough! It's the world's most underrated product – in fact it’s the Gross National Product of every country on earth. We can cook with it, garden with it, build with it, create controversial art with it, admire it and wear it. Each example is as unique as a snowflake and it’s the ultimate renewable resource. It's time to celebrate shit!

All kidding aside, CACAS is a fascinating look at the incredible range of color, texture, size and shape of animal output from tiny cricket poop, and impressively spherical camel output to seriously gnarly llama droppings and, of course, human excreta. CACAS also expounds on related topics such as potty-training, bathroom-sharing etiquette, hemorrhoids, astronaut elimination protocol, toilet paper, synthetic poo for diaper-testing, enemas, and the vast number of things that can be done with shit if you are both tolerant and creative. At first this may sound gross, but it’s actually really engrossing. We urge you to give poos a chance!

CACAS, the first ever encyclopedia of poo, is a project of COLORS magazine under the creative direction of Oliviero Toscani. COLORS has published bimonthly since 1992 in 80 countries worldwide, in 8 bilingual editions: English paired with Italian, Japanese, Croatian, German, Spanish, Greek, Russian and French. As is the case with every issue of COLORS, this book explores a single theme and exists thanks to United Colors of Benetton.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Taschen (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822858773
• ISBN-13: 978-3822858776
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 10.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,146,799 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Vile bile, March 18, 2004

By	Shelley Shay (Denton, TX **(God Bless the USA!!)**) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is certainly a coffee table book that will break the ice and get people talking, but perhaps not the best thing to read while eating chocolate bon-bons, fudge, or dark stew.

While it calls itself an encyclopedia, this is far from accurate. My high rating is for the superb studio photography and detail for each sample... but it loses a couple of stars on a number of fronts. The only readers of this book will be people, but people poo is hardly covered in detail. Why not a number of shots of different colors, shapes and sizes, describing what causes the various colors in each sample?

Then, on common pets such as cats and dogs, why not a variety there, to help diagnose illness?

It would seem that the authors could not decide whether this would be a commentary, a compendium or a comedy. The "s-word" and other colorful metaphors are used profusely for the sake of shock value, rather than for informative purposes. It's shocking to see such a nicely prepared volume with what appears to be such unprofessional language. It's not funny enough to be funny and not serious enough to be taken seriously.

It is interesting to see droppings from giraffes, monkeys, etc., but some of the animals mentioned are animals I have never heard of - and no picture of the animal itself is displayed.

This unusually themed book had a lot more potential than was reached by the authors. This is NOT a book for children, due to the comments in the book, but for kids who can't read, it might be a hoot at story time.

For the aspiring yet-to-be-published writer, this will certainly be an inspiration - if this poo can be published, than the world is your oyster.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Restroom Reading, May 1, 2001

By	Ahmad Jordan "Ahmad Jordan" (Bufalo, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Colors Magazine and Toscani (formerly of Colors) have always been infamous for brewing trouble via their editorial content. Sometimes they touch upon mature topics such as aids, racism etc. But every so often the "Brat" in them comes out and brings us a book such as this one.

Of course, the first reaction is that it is a disgusting book that isn't worth the paper it's printed on (suprisingly, know one thought of printing it on toilet paper). But if you actually take the time to read the stories about "poo" from around the world you begin to find some really interesting content. In fact, the stories are what saves the book from being a cheap visual prank on the viewers eyes.

I also like the fact that each photograph of "poo" is labelled with the animal it came from (including humans).

If you can stomach such a book, I think it's a subject worthy of reading and digesting.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Covers it all., October 6, 2002

By	Robin Benson - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Everything you ever wanted NOT to know. Actually not quite true because it is rather thin on the medical side of poo (illnesses and hospitals etc) and maybe that's a good thing too. Produced by the folks from `Colors' magazine (The United Colors of Benetton) this nicely designed book is full of one paragraph items, written in a straightforward style and thankfully avoiding any euphemisms. The editors must have wondered how on earth they were going to illustrate it? The neat solution was to get photographer Marirosa Ballo to train his lens on sixty-seven samples of animal droppings, reproduced here as cut-outs on the white page, nicely done too. Needless to say they vary enormously depending on the animals diet and lifestyle.

This quirky title is another addition to my (slowly) expanding shelf of bizarre books, it already has `A Handbook on Hanging' by Charles Duff (London 1928) `Frog Raising for Pleasure and Profit' by Albert Broel (New Orleans 1937) and `Car Crashes' by Mell Kilpatrick (Koln 2000) this last book is from the same publisher as 'Cacas'.