This Will Kill You: A Guide to the Ways in Which We Go

by HP Newquist, Rich Maloof, Peter M. Fitzpatrick MD (Foreword)

Have you been attacked by a great white shark? Gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Been exposed to anthrax? No, you haven't, or you'd be dead. This Will Kill You reveals the intriguing facts behind the many ways humans bite the dust in encounters with deadly bugs, hungry predators, natural disasters, and freak occurrences. Thoroughly researched and illustrated, not to mention thoroughly hilarious, this book describes in deathly detail what happens to the body when it’s struck by lightning, slimed by a dart frog, or flung from a mountaintop.

No other book has ever peaked under the Grim Reaper's robe in such a straightforward and irreverent way. With a foreword by a physician at the Mayo Clinic, an afterword by a funeral director, lists of history’s most notable deaths, and a unique death rating system, everything you need to know about the ways in which we go are included in these pages.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Death, Humor, Medicine, Medical

352 pages, Paperback

First published May 26, 2009

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

REMEMBER WHEN I USED TO WIN BOOKS??

i win!! yay for goodreads contests! watching the mails...

some hand-picked excerpts, selected for specific pals with specific fears/hangups:

michael:

Tuberculosis is spread, like pneumonia, via infected water droplets that you inhale when an infected person breathes, talks, spits, or otherwise propels those water droplets your way.

alfonso:

Coming in bright blues, greens, reads, oranges, and yellows, with splotches, stripes, and even polka dots in a little body about the size of a AA battery, the poison dart frog simply oozes cuteness. It also oozes the deadliest poison in the world.

dana:

Undetected, gangrene has close to a 100 percent kill rate. If detected early enough, however, gangrene can be treated, although amputation of the infected area is one of the common cures.

connor:

Once your body stops moving, the alligator drags your corpse back to dry land where it proceeds to tear large sections away from whatever remains. For anyone who is not quite dead, and has only passed out from near-asphyxiation, this is about as close to living hell as it gets right here on Earth.

connor2:

A dog mauling will kill you in less than ten minutes. Rabies will kill you a week to ten days after symptoms show up, which can be about two weeks after the actual bite occurred.

proust:

Odds for the average person getting fatal insomnia are one in 33 million. If it's part of your family DNA, however, the odds are closer to fifty-fifty.

me:

On average in the United States, someone dies in a house fire every 162 minutes.

so a little something for everyone. except greg—strangely nothing about deadly birds. maybe volume two...

p.s. jen:

The guinea worm lays its eggs in ponds and water supplies throughout central Africa. Once deposited in the water, the eggs are eaten by tiny fleas, which are so small they get swallowed with drinking water. Once inside your stomach, your digestive juices dissolve the fleas, but not the worm eggs inside them. The now-exposed eggs then nestle inside your intestines. Living comfortably, they remain in place until they grow to be about three feet long. This takes about a year. At maturity, female worms mate with males and create new eggs of their own. However, they need to lay these eggs in water, and start the slow process of burrowing through your intestines and organs in order to get to your skin. Once the worms reach your skin, or an eyeball—but before they break through to the outside—they release an acid that causes your skin to blister and bubble in order to create an exit route out of your body. These blisters are extremely painful, and as you try to ease the burn by washing them with water, the guinea worm bursts out of your body in a single, spaghetti-like strand.

come to my blog!

[Jakob J. 🎃 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two words to keep you up at night: Fatal Insomnia.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lena has me reading about as many books as anybody else on Good Reads with her wonderful reviews, and this was another of those - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....

This was a strange sort of book. The humour wasn’t as bad as I thought it might have been, although it did became a little tiresome at times. However, the best of this book is that it tells you lots of ways in which you might die and the process that that particular death is likely to take in each of those pathways to infinity. The goodness of a book is often told by how often I find I have to say things to the girls like, ‘Listen to this – Christ, you really don’t want to get eaten by a Komodo Dragon.’ That’s probably not a good example – most people already know that being eaten by anything isn’t going to provide a fun time. All the same, I had to interrupt the girls watching their favourite J-pop stars repeatedly and to their increasing annoyance throughout this book.

What I didn’t know was how horrible a time death by tetanus is - I wonder why they didn't mention this in primary school when we got the shots for it. What I did know was that tetanus causes lock jaw. So, I had this vague sort of idea that you might die from starvation. I had no idea that it causes muscle spasms that can break bones and rip muscles or cause heart attacks.

This book is sometimes unintentionally funny. I found this quote about the effects of a Black Widow Spider bite particularly amusing:

You may feel an abrupt stabbing pain when you are bitten. Pain spreads quickly from the bite wound to your midsection, especially around your stomach and back. Cramps and stiffness will follow, along with nausea, increased blood pressure, and laboured breathing. Next up is vomiting, irregular heartbeat, convulsions, general irritations and even priapism (unnatural stiffening of the penis … if you’re a male) Facial muscle spasms, anxiety, pale skin, and an inability to stay still will be followed by a substantial increase in mucous and sputum.

Needless to say, the bit I found funniest in this list of symptoms was ANXIETY. You are unable to keep yourself from dancing about the room, there is saliva drooling from your mouth, you can hardly breath through the gushings of vomit spraying about you and you have a bizarrely inexplicable and clearly inappropriate erection (“No, I don’t find this in the least bit sexy, do I look like I attended an English Public School?”) – of course you are going to be anxious. Even James Bond would be anxious, for God's sake, and to be honest, I think that anxiety is going to be the least of your worries, so to speak.

There were deaths not mentioned – having just read The Ghost Map The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World I know that dying of cholera is also an interesting way to go. I thought that it also might have been interesting to have a part on how we all prefer to die – that is, peacefully and in our sleep. Naturally, it generally isn’t sleep that kills us. What is interesting here is how frequently it is the same things that do kill us – organ failure, lack of oxygen to the brain, heart stopping, lungs not able to suck in air. What is remarkable is how so many different and various things (from AIDS to snake bite to smoking) can have pretty much the same outcome.

A friend of mine once played with a Ouija board (it is a and not an, isn’t it?) and a group of friends (one clearly much less friendly than the others) and one of his friends asked ‘the spirits’ how he was going to die, to which the spirits spelled out H-O-R-R-I-B-L-Y. If he is not sure which of the choices available to him will bring him to a particularly horrible end then this book ought to remove all doubts. For me space suit malfunction is really up there with the best of them, even if it is probably rather difficult to organise.

I enjoyed this book very much. One of the sort of books you should read before you die, as they say.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very strange book. If you have ever found yourself wondering, for example, about the precise series of events that cause your body to cease functioning should you happen to find yourself lost in the Sahara Desert without your water bottle, this book can tell you. It can also tell you what happens to your body when you drop a hair dryer into your bathtub, find yourself ambushed by a Komodo Dragon, consume arsenic proffered by batty old ladies, or participate in an "unscheduled plane landing."

All tolled, the book details the physical unfolding of more than seventy different ways of dying. It is set up as a reference book of sorts, with each method of death getting brief commentary on the mechanics followed by statistics on how many die in that fashion and who is most at risk punctuated by examples of notable victims.

Somewhere, I noted that this book is being marketed as a tool for writers. If I find I ever need to kill a character via poison dart frog, it will certainly come in handy to have this book nearby. The authors do their best to keep the tone light with ample doses of dark humor, but there is something about the subject matter that kept me from finding it quite as funny as some of the blurbs suggested. Though I did enjoy (well, maybe that's not exactly the right word) learning as much about end-times physiology as I did, I was also left with a discomfiting sense of how terribly fragile we are. Maybe that's a good thing.

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this book is about several dozen different ways a person can die, it's not morbid at all. It's written in a very light, irreverent way that keeps the text from getting depressing. But the humorous tone doesn't mean this book isn't very well-researched and informative: the authors studied hundreds of sources, including prestigious medical journals and health organizations, to gather information for their entries. I learned a lot.

Divided in alphabetical order, This Will Kill You tells you what it's like to die from causes ranging from cancer and heart attacks to Fatal Familial Insomnia and getting eaten by a Komodo dragon. It also informs the reader of the risk factors for each cause of death and what segments of the population are most likely to die that way, thereby educating us on how to keep the Grim Reaper at bay. (If I could sum up their cautions it would be something like, "If something sounds stupid, it probably is, and it could kill you, so don't do it.")

I really enjoyed this and will probably read it again in the future. It stands out from the genre of Death Literature by its volume of facts and its cheeky asides.

[Eshusdaughter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The authors approached the heavy topic of death with a very light hand and lots of dark humor. This book is presented as a reference manual with sections laid out under topic headings like an encyclopedia. There are entries for Alligator Attack, Cancer, Gun Shot and so on. All the major means of death are covered.

In some ways the text does present new info - giving a brief clinician's view of exactly how the particular method causes death. However, that area is very quick and to the point for the most part and not always very thorough. Far more text space if given to the authors' dark humor, weird examples of each kind of death and random factoids which are occasionally pretty interesting. Because of that this reads more like a tongue-in-cheek reference along the lines of Diana Wynne Jone's Guide To Fantasy Land which mocks reference manuals in general. This Will Kill You mocks the taboo subject of death just as Jone's work mocks the tropes in Fantasy literature. The book does not feel like an earnest attempt at a reference manual for the overly curious, writers and oddballs. Despite that, the book is strangely enjoyable once you set aside the reference assumption and treat it as a parody. The facts presented are sometimes eye opening, more often chosen for shock value, definitely reveling in the macabre and yes as disturbingly hard to look away from as a car wreck.

The random story/fact snippets that are included on most of the entries at the end in a separate dark call out area with a tiny skull at the top are the one thing that I think really detracts from the book. They are completely unrelated to the entries on which they appear and have no cohesive theme. They're a jarring departure from what is an otherwise well organized book and appear to have been included only for shock value.

Overall this is a disturbing, but funny reference manual parody that will definitely start some conversations if you leave it out on your coffee table. One last note - I am treating this very much as a parody, but it should be stated that occasionally the authors' humor can be a bit insensitive, especially in regard to various victims, and there are some very low-brow jokes about the various means of death. If you're easily offended, this is probably not the book for you. If you're squeamish, also probably not the book for you. If you enjoy a good parody and like to read weird facts and odd tidbits, you'd probably enjoy this book.

[Shellie (Layers of Thought) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. The authors write about a fearful and sensitive subject, how we can die, all the while having a grin on their collective faces. They making death amusing, funny, and curiously shocking. I would recommend this collection of trivia for those with the tendency toward enjoyment of the morbid, those whom are a bit paranoid, those enjoying medical facts or statistical data. The authors and publisher tout it to be a good reference book for writers looking for more information on ways in which a character can "go". It can be read from cover to cover or just picked up and flipped through. It is extremely well organized into short chapters on each particular way in which we can die. There are several pages for each reason giving the reader just enough information on each death topic to make it interesting but not overwhelming. For example, Ebola, drinking overdose, and freezing are broken down into further categories such as horror factor, notable victims, and grim facts for each specific ways in how This Will Kill You. Interesting stuff.

[Helen (Helena/Nell) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why would anybody enjoy reading a compendium of ways to die, in detail, with horribleness ratings?

I do not know.

However, this was my bedside book for quite a while, and I enjoyed it. I found it more intriguing than amusing. Reading about ways of dying is probably a kind of innoculation, because although you know you ARE going to die, there are so many ways in which it is definitely not going to happen. So you feel somewhat less mortal at the end than at the start.

Or maybe it's because fascination with death is a fundamental human characteristic.

It adds up to the fact that I have no idea why I enjoyed reading this in bed. It did not put me off my sleep. It didn't lead to one single nightmare.

It did occur to me to wonder whether there was something wrong with me. Not mortally wrong of course, but maybe morally. Why on earth WAS I enjoying this bizarre book?

But then I figure it's sold pretty well. I can't be alone.

[Sandi]

My son is blasting through this book. I sure could use recommendations for similar books a 14 year old boy might like.

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly good (and funny) read given it was about the topic of death. It appears to be well researched and has a lot of statistics about what can kill you.

I did find it a bit USA centric in places but still a fun read.

[Quiet Rain · Rating 4 out of 5]

..Guinea worms.

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Post Thoughts:
This will certainly not be a book that I will finish diligently. Thus, this is not meant to be conveyed in a negative way. What I'm trying to say is that this book is more of a comedic, satirical relief rather than a novel. The outline of the entire book basically consist of individual euphemisms and segments on "ways in which we go". If you ever feel a need to determine the most horrifying or exotic way to die, this is somewhat the reference.

When I read the foreword and introduction, it had me EXTREMELY intrigued. The idea of death and the meaning of death brought many unknown explanation until the Uniform Determination of Death Act of 1980 simply stated:

An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.

In summation, "all death is brain death" contingent paves individual segments of how people die throughout the book.

The first 10 pages were probably the only time I became infatuated because the rest were dull and monotonous due to the banality content on ways of death. I do not mean to put death as a game or an entertainment purpose but all deaths described in the books are common.

From the beginning, the style of language was lighthearted and comedic so I was expecting unique and bizarre deaths that would pique my interest. That did not happen.

I was expecting deaths described in the book to be extremely bizarre similar to the show 1000 Ways To Die



If you haven't seen the show, it simulate accounts of bizarre deaths and some are just awfully gruesome while other are just out of plain stupidity. Here are some examples:

1.) A guy dies by setting his friend on fire with his fart.
2.) A driver dies by sticking a pepper spray up his butt
3.) A guy tries to rob a gun store but in return dies from getting shot from the guns in the gun store.

These were premonitions of what I was expected when reading the foreword and introduction of the book but it did not come about to be.

Cover:
The main reason why I probably purchased of the compelling book title "THIS WILL KILL YOU" in all caps. The image is very captivating because the face is assembled by weapons that can easily kill you. Great Cover!


Conclusion:
To me, the primary purpose of this book is simply for entertainment. All these deaths are extremely common to the point I surely don't care to read about the probable, horrifying aspect of them. Initially I was going to give it 2 stars but the cover is so cool and therefore ★★★ is what I rate the book.

[Michelle Lemaster · Rating 4 out of 5]

So it's not the book that you chat about over tea with your dearest chums. This one is more the book you laugh it up about over margaritas with your girlfriends or over brews with the guys. I can picture it now... "Hey girl! Would you rather bite the bullet by taking a nail gun to the head or by swallowing Drano?" This book is a charmer for all and, true to its word, a great reference book for the death affecianado or coffee table talk piece for the horror junky. Written in a highly readable reference book style, This Will Kill You is filled with such fine nuggets as rating systems for such death issues as horror factor, lethality, and the notable people who have met their ends in such and such a way. (Why, did you know that Socrates died by a death sentence requiring him to drink a goblet of hemlock? Or that Herod the Great, scourge of the ancient Jews, is believed to have bit the bullet from a rare form of gangrene in his genitals?). Take it from me, even if you're not a morbid maniac living on the fringes of society, this treasure is much worth adding to your bookshelves.
Michelle L.

[Intplibrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the title and description of this book intrigue you at all, you'll love this book.[return][return]Ever watch the tv show 1000 Ways to Die? This is like a book form of that show. Each "way to die" has a description of how that method would kill you, how long it takes to die that way, an example or two of famous related cases, and various other stats -- all presented in a ... entertaining... way. I was going to say "funny", and the book did make me laugh at times, but at the same time, it actually doesn't treat death lightly. It doesn't actually make fun of the people who have died various ways, but isn't a serious book either.[return][return]It's not exactly the kind of book one would read more than once. I was sorry that I finished it because I wanted to read more!

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished This Will Kill You. It might sound a little strange, but I found this to be good bedtime reading. I could read a chapter or two about what it's like to be killed by Alligator, or Hemlock, or Rabies and then turn out the light and get a good night's sleep. I think this is partly due to the humorous tone the authors have taken even while they relate the most gruesome details about dying. And they do relate just about every method of dying you can think of.

This probably isn't for everyone but if you've ever wondered what it might be like to be burned at the stake or to be poisoned with polonium then this is the book for you.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't ask. I don't know why I bought this book. I put it on the bottom of my book pile because I wasn't sure it was smart to read about all the ways people can die -- and all the gory details -- while I'm having so many nightmares. But, last week I decided to give it a try. This Will Kill You is not a book about gore at all. The authors do a great job at keeping the writing light and humorous to balance the heavy topics within the book. Still, I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to anyone. It's a little weird...

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It was respectfully hilarious, considering the topic. In fact, I got the feeling the authors were restraining themselves.

Each chapter is the perfect length for going outside to smoke a cigarette. An activity that I'm seriously rethinking after reading the book.

A topic that I was looking forward to, but was absent, was Stinging Ocean Creatures. Where's the box jellyfish and blue ring octopus? The horror factor on those should be pretty high.

[Myriah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holy crow, this book is informative, fascinating and humorous. I gave it three stars because it was a bit of a downer...it was about death, after all. If I read too many entries I would start to get a bit depressed, and would have to take a break.

I liked the length of each entry, and the overall format of the information.

I liked this book, despite the whole death thing.

As a bonus, it is a great conversation starter.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the obvious morbidity factor in enjoying material of this type, I absolutely LOVE this book! My favorite chapters to date are the bits on hemlock and starvation. Crazy? Maybe a little. Great coffee table book and reference for anyone looking to add a little flavor to the latest death segment of a work in progress. Very entertaining.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great little book about the ways in which a person can die, by their own hand or the hand of fate. It covers everything from alligator attack, to death by komodo dragon, to a nail gun in the head and so on down the alphabet. It is written in a lighthearted manner and can be comical at times. The facts are more interesting than horrific. Thank you Goodreads for your contest.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book that I would typically have picked up. However, I wasn't going to turn down a free Goodreads promotional copy either. It actually turned out to be pretty good book. It was easy to read, entertaining, and best of all, informative. Well worth flipping through if you have the time.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusingly morbid & interesting. Especially the 'on a scale of 1-10' how much does this way to go suck. Everything from TB to the bubonic plague to the alligator death roll, plus a comparison of which death by snake is more awful, venomous or constricting. A: Constricting. Uplifting bathroom reading.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now I know the answer to a life-long question: Is it worse to burn or freeze to death (FYI: according to the book, it's burn, but that's being burned at the stake, so a different type of burn might not be as bad as being a human marshmallow). A crazy book, but it's definitely one I won't forget!

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads. This was an interesting read. For the crime drama junkie in me, it was cool to learn just how you die from a gunshot or ricin poisoning. On the other hand, not so crazy to be reading about death by Guinea worm...

[Jeannie · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was an enjoyable read, I learned some things I didn't know. some of it horrified me but mainly this book just enlightened me to the many dangers that are lurking out there just waiting to take us out. a fun read.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining read! Fun to pick up and read a few entries at a time. I would recommend reading this book out loud to a spouse or friend; and is even better if you get into a "documentary style narrative" voice while reading it out loud.

[Lorra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man there is some disturbing shit out there - guinea worm?? UGH! I'm glad I know some things to avoid and watch out for, though a lot of these things, thankfully, are really unlikely. Phew. VERY interesting reading, I highly recommend. I just wish there was MORE - maybe a sequel?

[Xanthi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book very much! Full of dark humour and interesting facts and case studies. Written in a way that is both entertaining and informative. I didn't want it to end - what does that say about me? Ha!

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart or hypochondriacs. A fun reference for the ways we go-and a handy guide to those that are the most gruesome.

[Hallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious book. Like the summary says, a must for any mystery writer, or 15 year old boy. Not a book you really "read" but thumbing through it and having it on the shelf is definitely enjoyable.