What do you think?
Rate this book
This Book Is Not a Toy!: Friendly Advice on How to Avoid Death and Other Inconveniences
THIS BOOK IS NOT A TOY!
Friendly Advice on How To Avoid Death and Other Inconveniences
- Our Friend or Foe?
- Why it is not good to step on a snake's neck
- Common sense tips for daredevils
- How to crash $800 billion worth of Boeing aircraft
- Mount Everest tours where "Kids Climb Free!"
- Why your house it out to get you
In this wry, wistful, deeply wise, and trouser-wetting funny collection of essays, nationally known humorist and public radio commentator Chuck Goldstone shows us why we humans are a fluky bunch, agents of our own undoing, who dive blindly into life, too often underestimating the potential for danger and overestimating our competence.
This Book Is Not a Toy! is Goldstone's summa, his collected advice about life's hidden peril. Sharing his own off kilter experiences and those observed in hapless members of his fellow species, he spelunks the deep regions of overconfidence and shows how we have replaced common sense and 100,000 years of collective mammalian wisdom with naiveté, oafishness and bad judgment.
Goldstone lays out the buffet of peril that tempts us, such as buying sharp edged power tools at Home Depot, cohabiting a planet rife with animals who would slaughter us as soon as look at us, indulging in risky pastimes, scaling vengeful mountains, or simply lighting up the backyard barbecue grill.
Purveyor of mockery, angst provocateur, and just plain smart ass, Goldstone is a willing participant in the often befuddling activities of life, and in doing so, speaks for most of us, rubbing our noses in the problems we create for ourselves and reminding us we should know better. If laughter is a health risk, then be This Book Is Not A Toy! will have you laughing all the way to the blood bank.
Friendly Advice on How To Avoid Death and Other Inconveniences
- Our Friend or Foe?
- Why it is not good to step on a snake's neck
- Common sense tips for daredevils
- How to crash $800 billion worth of Boeing aircraft
- Mount Everest tours where "Kids Climb Free!"
- Why your house it out to get you
In this wry, wistful, deeply wise, and trouser-wetting funny collection of essays, nationally known humorist and public radio commentator Chuck Goldstone shows us why we humans are a fluky bunch, agents of our own undoing, who dive blindly into life, too often underestimating the potential for danger and overestimating our competence.
This Book Is Not a Toy! is Goldstone's summa, his collected advice about life's hidden peril. Sharing his own off kilter experiences and those observed in hapless members of his fellow species, he spelunks the deep regions of overconfidence and shows how we have replaced common sense and 100,000 years of collective mammalian wisdom with naiveté, oafishness and bad judgment.
Goldstone lays out the buffet of peril that tempts us, such as buying sharp edged power tools at Home Depot, cohabiting a planet rife with animals who would slaughter us as soon as look at us, indulging in risky pastimes, scaling vengeful mountains, or simply lighting up the backyard barbecue grill.
Purveyor of mockery, angst provocateur, and just plain smart ass, Goldstone is a willing participant in the often befuddling activities of life, and in doing so, speaks for most of us, rubbing our noses in the problems we create for ourselves and reminding us we should know better. If laughter is a health risk, then be This Book Is Not A Toy! will have you laughing all the way to the blood bank.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2005
1 person is currently reading
5 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 23, 2013
The 'In Lieu of Acknowledgements' section started out promising with its admission that the Acknowledgements section of any book is never read by anyone who isn't mentioned in it, so therefore the author was going to keep it short & not mention anyone, then proceeded to mention everyone and go on for three long pages. Yawn.
I only read the first couple essays & then quit subjecting myself to the pointlessness. I didn't find it amusing or entertaining at all. Just mind-numbingly verbose, repetitive, & stale.
I only read the first couple essays & then quit subjecting myself to the pointlessness. I didn't find it amusing or entertaining at all. Just mind-numbingly verbose, repetitive, & stale.
Displaying 1 of 1 review