Thinning the Herd: Tales of the Weirdly Departed
By:
Cynthia Ceilan
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Lowest New Price: $3.06
List Price: $14.95
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Description:
So you think life is weird?
It would appear that our desire to show respect and honor the dead is an instinct deeply encoded in our nature as humans. Even Neanderthal man, who walked the Earth more than 60,000 years ago, buried his loved ones with carefully arranged animal bones and flowers. Some of us, alas, choose to ignore that instinct.
Take, for example, the case of Katherine Knight, a butcher who stabbed her boyfriend thirty-seven times, then invited his adult children to dinner and served them a nice stew of potatoes, vegetables, their father's boiled head, and his baked buttocks, filleted.
Or David Galvan, whose drunk uncle permanently cured him of the hiccups by accidentally shooting him in the head.
Or Jean-Louis Toubon, who choked to death on his girlfriend's edible panties.
Maybe all of death is happenstance. Or maybe it's just life, filtering out the gene pool. Thinning the Herd: Tales of the Weirdly Departed is a delightfully irreverent collection of real-life anecdotes, facts, and observations regarding Death. You know . . . that thing that only happens to other people.
Publisher: The Lyons Press
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Might not be completely accurate, but very entertaining! - I bought this book about a month ago and I have already read it and loaned it to 3 people who were dying to read it after just reading small tid bits of it. It's dark humour and short tales made it easy and fun to read even when I didn't have much time. I understand that some of what the writer wrote was not completely accurate, however whatever was true was extreamly entertaining and one of my favorite books I've read lately.
Customer Review: 2 out of 5
Why isn't there a NO STARS category?.... - ...Because"Thinning the Herd" by Cynthia Ceilan would certainly deserve such a ranking..If this isn't among the most badly researched,ineptly written books of its kind than I don't know what is..Much of what Ceilan reports as fact ISN'T ! To give JUST A FEW examples;
On page # 56 Ms. Ceilan makes the following observation about Oliver Cromwell.."Two and a half years after the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658 he was exhumed,tried,found guilty of treason AND EXECUTED ALL OVER AGAIN.."..the fact is that Cromwell died of illness while still a power in Great Britan,and was not "executed"...except of course after he was already dead and the monarchy had been restored
On page # 51 ms.Ceilan writes that Zachary Taylor,12th president of the united states "..Died of uncontrollable diarrhea"..the facts,such as they are known,suggest typhoid fever,however it was long thought that Taylor may have been poisoned..this led to a 20th century exhumation of his corpse which disproved the poisoning stories.."uncontrollable diarrhea"while it MAY have been a contributing factor in Taylor's final illness has not been claimed by any reputable historian to be the cause of his death
On page # 46 ms Ceilan writes that Ohio politician Clement Vallandigham accidentally shot himself to death in 1846..Curious how a man who died in 1846 could be declared a hostile"copperhead" by the Lincoln administration in the 1860s and exiled to confederate territory because of this
On page # 43 ms Ceilan writes that noted mobster Al Capone died of syphills"while serving time in a maximum security prison"when in fact he died of this illness at his vacation home in Florida..
These are just four examples of Ms Ceilan's shoddy and inept research..The 300 plus page book is filled with other examples too numerous to mention..And not all of Ms.Ceilan's subjects are known historical personalities,whose lives and deaths are easily checked out..Many of Ms.Ceilan's choices involve obscure individuals whose main claim to fame,such as it is,relates to thier bizarre deaths..but given Ms.Ceilan's slipshod research involving known historical persons one can only speculate as to how often Ms.Ceilan got the facts involving the deaths of these otherwise unknown individuals WRONG...
While the book is entertaining,in its own macabre way,it is far from accurate and for this reason it deserves no stars.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
To satisfy a morbid curiosity - I got this book from the library, and I hope to buy it soon. I loved it! I read it from cover to cover, often reading out loud to my husband and mother-in-law. Each story is wittily written, and it makes me a little more comfortable about a dark and foreboding subject. And if you ever want to convince someone that suicide is not the answer tell them to read this book. I've already got a number of people lined up to check it out once I take it back.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Worth the time and money.... - I loved this book! It was actually morbidly funny. I loved it so much that I passed it on to my mother-in-law who loved it too...
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Bring Out Your Dead - This is an excellent and well researched book that covers a topic that is somewhat morbid but Ceilan brings a lively wit to the table. If you are going to go out in a weird and strange manner you would want her to hail your spirit off this mortal coil. A great, lively, and excellent read!
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