Wasn't always in love with the author's voice, but the humour had moments. Also the death facts were enjoyable and well-researched for the time it was writ.

Good toilet read.

My favourite section is probably "struck by lightning on the golf range."

Some very 2009 thoughts in there. There's sprinklings of subtle homophobia and quietly muttered racism. If you lived through that time period it won't kill you or anything though. It's also so USA-centric it often forgets to tell you where exactly he's talking about because he assumes you know.

Also I personally think the "horror meter" is completely wrong a lot of the time, but fear is very individual, isn't it?

I think one will know rather quickly when starting this book whether they will want to read the rest or not. ( )

The book is structured in 76 alphabetical entries on ways we can die, from "Alligators" to "Working in a Coal Mine." Each entry covers a couple of paragraphs on "How it Kills," then "Known by Science as," (for example, a bullet wound is "deadly force; projective wounding"), "Medical Cause of Death," (using the bullet wound example again, "depends on where the bullet hits, but blood loss, brain death, cardiac arrest and organ failure are all potential candidates"), "Time to Kill," "Highest Risk" (for bullet wounds, "gang members, drug dealers, soldiers, hunters"), "Lethality," "Kills per Annum," "Historic Death Toll," "Notable Victims," "Horror Factor," and finally, "Grim Facts" (some interesting bits of trivia).

The entries range from major killers (cancer, small pox, natural disasters) to killers with a historic death toll of one (polonium poisoning). Written for a non-medical audience, the entries are highly readable and entertaining. For example, I really liked this comment under "Drug Overdose at a Rock Show": "The quintessential rock overdose goes to quintessential bad-ass Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols . . . He overdosed that night and woke up dead. For an anti-establishment icon, it was a pretty well-established way to go." I guess a book on death that wasn't written with a sense of humour would just be depressing.

I also liked this bit from the afterword, which was written by a mortician: "I've found that it is extremely unlikely that you will die before the age of twenty-five if you don't have a tattoo. I first noticed a correlation between tattoos and young death many years ago, even before tattoos became wildly popular. Whenever someone young died, I would ask my staff if the person had a tattoo. Initially, the answer was always "yes." Over time, however, the answer to the question became "of course"." I may have to post that on Facebook.

Why I Read This Now: I came across it while waiting for my daughters at a bookstore back in June. In my warped way, I thought it sounded too fun to pass up. This book has been sitting around my house all summer, and all four of us pick it up and read an entry when we're in the mood. We've all enjoyed it very much, and it's led to all sorts of interesting discussions.

Recommended for: people who think this sounds interesting. Not recommended for those who think all things related to dying are grim and serious and think I'm a bad person for finding this entertaining; people without a sense of humour; and definitely not for the squeamish. Also not for sticklers for complete scientific and medical accuracy. It's not that I think the info is wrong, but that I can see that it's far from complete. But this is not an academic work, it's entertainment.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars ( )

This Will Kill You: A Guide to the Ways in Which We Go is one of those books I love to have simply because it appears so discordant with everything else on my bookshelf. Chock full of things you never knew you wanted to know about the many ways in which we can die, it is by turns gross, funny, frightening, and downright stomach-turning. Newquist and Maloof’s collection of ways to die runs the gamut from the mundane (cardiac arrest, diabetes, etc.) to the wow-I could-have-gone-my-whole-life-without-knowing-that-and-been-very-happy-because-it’s-so-disgusting (more on this later).

The most surprising thing about these ways in which we go? “Some of them are actually kind of funny as long as they’re not happening to you.”

Amen to that.

The gross-out factor may be kind of high, but This Will Kill You is just as entertaining as it is disgusting, and I think it makes a perfect companion book for Mary Roach’s Stiff, which tells you all about what can happen to your body after you die.

Read my full review at The Book Lady's Blog. ( )

I love This Will Kill You, although I find I can only read three or four ways to die at any one time. More than that is simply depressing and creepy.

The Two Minute Medical School in the front gives you a quick guide to various medical terms you will encounter in each chapter. Each chapter has a synopsis of the minutia of the ways we die -- how one is dragged into the water by an alligator that has grabbed your leg or arm or head (!) for example -- and then the statistics, including known by science as, medical cause of death, time to kill, lethality, kills per annum, notable victim, and horror factor.

The book is a mix of ghastly ideas, horrifying realities -- Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, bit his tongue and died three weeks later because the wound developed gangrene. Gangrene makes flesh rot and stink. Yuck yuck yuck. (Stuff like this is why I only read this book in short bursts.). But all the ghastly horribleness is mixed in with a wicked sense of humor, which is really what makes the book worth every penny. The Horror Factor for Hair Dryer in the Bathtub reads "Paralyzed, burned, and naked is a tough way to go."

I just picked up the book, opened it at random, and read the next three deaths: House Fire, Hunger Strike, and Jumping Off a Bridge.

In reading about house fires, the good news is that it's a quick death. In heavy smoke and hot flames, you will die within two to five minutes. So agonizing but not drawn out. But then you discover that almost one in five people injured in a house fire die, which amounts to 2,500 to 3,000 deaths in the US each year. (I had no idea it was that high. I guess it's only news if lots of sympathetic victims perish in dramatic fashion.) The Horror Factor is a nine, because "It's fire. Fire!"

Hunger Strike is just depressing. And once again leaves me wondering how anorexics function, since they seem to be on an undeclared hunger strike. But the real awfulness is not in those who think they are too fat, but that 25,000 people die every day from malnutrition, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. Nothing much funny in this one.

Jumping off a bridge, it turns out, is a lot like jumping off a building. Find a bridge high enough, and hitting the water is very similar to hitting concrete. You are most likely to die from massive trauma. Those at highest risk include "mentally and emotionally depressed people; those who purchase secondhand bungee-jumping gear; tourists who "want a better look" from the bridge."

Reading this book will give you some great if random facts for the next lull in the conversation, like the fact that Jack Daniel -- yeah, of Jack Daniel's whiskey -- broke his toe when he kicked his safe and died when he developed gangrene.

On the other hand, if you are squeamish, depressed, have an overactive imagination, or are a crazy worrier, then I would suggest you read only the fluffiest of deaths. Stick to those deaths that are most easily avoided, like Going over Niagara Falls, Space Suit Malfunction, and Working in a Coal Mine.

Thanks Early Reviewers and St Martin's Press for the book! It's going to be a Christmas present for the more morbid and black-humored of my relatives this year! ( )

A fairly entertaining, if grim, compendium of possible ways to die, ranging from ebola and fire ants, to professional sports and ulcers. Written in an encyclopedic format, each way to die is given an entry of three to four pages, wherein the author lays out tidbits such as "time to kill" (how long you'll suffer), and "horror factor" (how gruesome an end you'll face). While the content is well done and informative, it is this format that ends up being the book's weakness. The various entries are in alphabetic order, with nothing to tie them together and no overarching context. Unfortunately, this ultimately leaves the book in the tall stack of "Encyclopedia of ..." books that most readers will open up to random pages for the occasional quick read, but will never read cover to cover. ( )