Product Description

Over 1.5 million copies sold in this New York Times bestselling humor series

With over 1.5 million copies sold, the Darwin Awards series is the alpha chimp of humorous human mishaps. Despite being an international bestseller, and inspiring a movie—The Darwin Awards—these cautionary chronicles have failed to stop another generation of Darwin Award winners from steering motorcycles with their feet, heating lava lamps on stoves, using liquid soap as brake fluid, and drowning themselves in the kitchen sink.

Filled with more than 100 new tales of evolution in action, plus science essays and a parody research paper supporting Intelligent Design, The Darwin Awards 4 shows that when it comes to common sense, natural selection still has a long, long way to go.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24300 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780452288805
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
celebration of those who have 'improved our gene pool by removing themselves from it in a sublimely idiotic fashion.' -- AudioFile Magazine

celebration of those who have 'improved our gene pool by removing themselves from it in a sublimely idiotic fashion.' --AudioFile Magazine

About the Author
WEND:Y NORTHCUTT is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in molecular biology. The New York Times bestselling author began compiling the Darwin Awards in 1993. With seven hundred tales of misadventure, her award-winning website www.DarwinAwards.com is one of the most popular destinations on the Internet.
CHRISTOPHER M. KELLY is a graduate of Stanford University and the author of the lovable favorite, It’s Okay to Be Happy.

From AudioFile
The fourth in a series of such books by the author, this seamless abridgment reports the antics of real individuals who have acted so stupidly that they sometimes die, thus removing themselves from the reproductive chain. Starting a paper fire under a car engine that is too cold to start, snowmobiling across water, blowing up outhouses, idiotic gun mishaps--these true stories are sometimes funny, sometimes sad. They are told alternately by the two narrators, whose pacing and phrasing serve the material well. Patrick Lawlor Girard's energetic performance includes foreign accents that work more often than not. His vocal skill and reportorial urgency make co-narrator Julie Schaller sound too innocent or casual by comparison. T.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Another book in the Darwin Awards series...
The Darwin Awards strikes again!

Volume 4 features the latest folk who have removed themselves from the human gene pool (Darwin Award winner) or attempted to (Honorable Mention).

Death isn't required as an endpoint for a Darwin Award, but reproductive fitness must be reduced to zero.

As an example of an Honorable Mention, I submit the case (p. 135) of an unidentified 50 year old entering the emergency room of a hospital in Hong Kong, complaining of abdominal pain. After an x-ray, doctors spotted what appeared to be an eel in his colon! Yes, the man admitted. He had been suffering from constipation, and decided that inserting an eel would be just the ticket to solve this problem. He recovered, so he remains in the gene pool (for those who will have him, and his traits).

And who gets a Darwin Award? Consider the case of the sleep-deprived Romanian (p. 129). He couldn't sleep because of a pesky and noisy rooster. He dreamed of wringing its neck, or, even better, decapitation. One evening he had had enough. He got out of bed, grabbed the rooster, and chopped off its head. Unfortunately, the sleep-deprived man noticed soon after that he had accidentally chopped off his penis instead, and while reflecting on this, his dog came over and ate the discarded member. He did get to the hospital and recover, but he was effectively removed from the gene pool.

See? Death need not be the endpoint. However, I guarantee you that the majority of Darwin Award recipients are no longer of this Earth. And, as compiler Wendy Northcutt would argue, that is just fine for the human gene pool.

Darwin Awards 4 -- Stupid People 0
Wendy Northcutt & Co. have brought us yet another great set of anecdotes about how NOT to "maximize your reproductive fitness". As has been noted before: it's fun to watch, from a position of safety of course, the antics of the truly foolish and stupid. (Consider the long-standing popularity of clown acts, for example.) We get to laugh in a self-reassuring way, thinking "There but for the grace of...well, Darwin, go I."

We know, or at least we believe, that OUR brains won't be victims of what some wit has labeled "testosterone poisoning", which too often leads to such famous last words as "Hey, y'all, watch this!" (Alcohol poisoning seems to exacerbate the testosterone poisoning, as in the case of the two drunken young men who made a bet to see who could dangle the longer from a freeway overpass one night. They both lost the bet, dying when they fell into traffic after they could no longer hold on.)

So get ready to shake your head in amazement, and have many a chuckle along the way, as you read the latest round-up of human idiocy. You'll learn some other fascinating things too, in the science essays that introduce the chapters. Enjoy!

Learning can be Fun
Informative, full of life's little lessons for all of us, like why you shouldn't munch on glass. Entertaining, humorous, even hilarious at times. Not that death is funny. Just that realizing that sometimes common sense takes a flying leap out the penthouse window... with the Darwin Award winner himself close behind.

But I also appreciated the format of the book. It can be taken in little doses, like when waiting in the emergency room for your non-life-threatening treatment, or swallowed all at once.

A great gift for the person lacking common sense, or those who love the bizarre. I guess both describe me!