What do you think?
Rate this book
Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously
A Selection of the Scientific American Book Club
Want to add more excitement to your life?
This daring combination of science, history, and DIY projects will show you how. Written for smart risk takers, it explores why danger is good for you and details the art of living dangerously.
Risk takers are more successful, more interesting individuals who lead more fulfilling lives. Unlike watching an action movie or playing a video game, real-life experience changes a person, and Gurstelle will help you discover the true thrill of making black powder along with dozens of other edgy activities.
All of the projects—from throwing knives, drinking absinthe, and eating fugu to cracking a bull whip, learning bartitsu, and building a flamethrower—have short learning curves, are hands-on and affordable, and demonstrate true but reasonable risk.
With a strong emphasis on safety, each potentially life-altering project includes step-by-step directions, photographs, and illustrations along with troubleshooting tips from experts in the field.
Want to add more excitement to your life?
This daring combination of science, history, and DIY projects will show you how. Written for smart risk takers, it explores why danger is good for you and details the art of living dangerously.
Risk takers are more successful, more interesting individuals who lead more fulfilling lives. Unlike watching an action movie or playing a video game, real-life experience changes a person, and Gurstelle will help you discover the true thrill of making black powder along with dozens of other edgy activities.
All of the projects—from throwing knives, drinking absinthe, and eating fugu to cracking a bull whip, learning bartitsu, and building a flamethrower—have short learning curves, are hands-on and affordable, and demonstrate true but reasonable risk.
With a strong emphasis on safety, each potentially life-altering project includes step-by-step directions, photographs, and illustrations along with troubleshooting tips from experts in the field.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
27 people are currently reading
361 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 - 30 of 39 reviews
January 9, 2010
There is a small but growing sub-genre of books into which this one fits quite neatly. It is, to the best of my knowledge, purely an American male phenomenon, but if you've found something else, please let me know.
It's the genre I describe as "Mid-Life Crisis Obsession Non-Fiction." A man, always middle class, white, and well-educated, but bored and dulled by his safe corporate life, decides to embrace something wild and daring and dangerous. Then he writes about how he did it, often about how you can do it, too. There is almost always some sort of an attempt at making it a spiritual journey,
Prime examples are "Heat", "No Impact Man" (okay, a blog/movie not a book...), and "Emergency." One might argue that "Fight Club" qualifies, though I've never actually slogged through that book. And now, "Absinthe and Flamethrowers."
I was torn about my rating. Part of the book is fantastic -- a useful and handy guide on how to make gunpowder and solid rocket fuel. There are instructions, too, for an actual flame thrower. There is a listing of places to buy hard-to-find items (which I plan to use for my sausage making, if nothing else). Clear, well-written, laced with just enough humour. A good read for those of us who love a Mythbusters marathon.
And then there's the rest of the book.
He spends a long and dull chapter in the front of the book talking about how risk taking defines our humanity, our selves, our lives! How you are a better person if you take risks! How modern life stifles our risk taking! How he broke out from his dull job at the phone company! Blah, blah, blah. I skimmed the first bit of that chapter and skipped the rest, thinking that this guy should just run naked into the woods and bang on a drum.
And, for someone who believes risk taking is so vital, he spends a LOT of his ink describing common-sense safety precautions for all of his "artfully dangerous projects." It's likely that he had to do that because of lawyers, but it's still a steady undercurrent of caution that undermines his central thesis of RISK=LIVING!
And the rest of the book -- the bits that aren't gunpowder or smoke bombs or whatnot -- strikes a sort of sour note with me. He enumerates a list of "artfully dangerous activities" that you may or may not want to indulge in. I'm all for living "on the edge," but his idea of what a dangerous man might do is a bit ... adolescent. Imagine what a suburban 14-year-old geek boy might think that James Bond does and you've got a good idea of his list: eating fugu, learning to crack a whip, smoking a European cigarette, drinking absinthe (which, he's at pains to explain, isn't nearly as dangerous as you think it is!), and driving fast. Even eating hot chili peppers makes his list, which becomes fairly pedestrian once it's out of the realm of explosives.
The most interesting thing that doesn't involve explosives is his very glancing section of bartitsu, the martial art practiced by Sherlock Holmes. It's not useful, but he has endnotes that point the interested Holmes fan towards more information.
And I have got to applaud his citations, lists, and excellent references. Ironically, his solid research is the best part of the book. What's more, it's useful for those of us who want the learn to make gunpowder, but don't see doing so as a life-affirming way to reassert our manhood.
It's the genre I describe as "Mid-Life Crisis Obsession Non-Fiction." A man, always middle class, white, and well-educated, but bored and dulled by his safe corporate life, decides to embrace something wild and daring and dangerous. Then he writes about how he did it, often about how you can do it, too. There is almost always some sort of an attempt at making it a spiritual journey,
Prime examples are "Heat", "No Impact Man" (okay, a blog/movie not a book...), and "Emergency." One might argue that "Fight Club" qualifies, though I've never actually slogged through that book. And now, "Absinthe and Flamethrowers."
I was torn about my rating. Part of the book is fantastic -- a useful and handy guide on how to make gunpowder and solid rocket fuel. There are instructions, too, for an actual flame thrower. There is a listing of places to buy hard-to-find items (which I plan to use for my sausage making, if nothing else). Clear, well-written, laced with just enough humour. A good read for those of us who love a Mythbusters marathon.
And then there's the rest of the book.
He spends a long and dull chapter in the front of the book talking about how risk taking defines our humanity, our selves, our lives! How you are a better person if you take risks! How modern life stifles our risk taking! How he broke out from his dull job at the phone company! Blah, blah, blah. I skimmed the first bit of that chapter and skipped the rest, thinking that this guy should just run naked into the woods and bang on a drum.
And, for someone who believes risk taking is so vital, he spends a LOT of his ink describing common-sense safety precautions for all of his "artfully dangerous projects." It's likely that he had to do that because of lawyers, but it's still a steady undercurrent of caution that undermines his central thesis of RISK=LIVING!
And the rest of the book -- the bits that aren't gunpowder or smoke bombs or whatnot -- strikes a sort of sour note with me. He enumerates a list of "artfully dangerous activities" that you may or may not want to indulge in. I'm all for living "on the edge," but his idea of what a dangerous man might do is a bit ... adolescent. Imagine what a suburban 14-year-old geek boy might think that James Bond does and you've got a good idea of his list: eating fugu, learning to crack a whip, smoking a European cigarette, drinking absinthe (which, he's at pains to explain, isn't nearly as dangerous as you think it is!), and driving fast. Even eating hot chili peppers makes his list, which becomes fairly pedestrian once it's out of the realm of explosives.
The most interesting thing that doesn't involve explosives is his very glancing section of bartitsu, the martial art practiced by Sherlock Holmes. It's not useful, but he has endnotes that point the interested Holmes fan towards more information.
And I have got to applaud his citations, lists, and excellent references. Ironically, his solid research is the best part of the book. What's more, it's useful for those of us who want the learn to make gunpowder, but don't see doing so as a life-affirming way to reassert our manhood.
November 19, 2018
Hard to describe this book. I thought it was going to contain interesting information vis-a-vis the book of dangerous ideas for boys. Instead this book comes across as a pseudo mid-life crisis, self-help book to justify ones existence. If you need this book to help define yourself as thrill seeking, you have probably already failed.
December 13, 2011
I'll admit that I skipped most of this and spent a lot of time on the flamethrower instructions, and I have to say they are unclear, inconsistent, and imprecise. the materials sheet lacks a handful of pieces he references later and the design he outlines differs from the example he's made.
In general, if you don't have the mechanical inclination to0 fill in the gaps or improvise a bit you probably won't be able to make a working flamethrower from his recipe, but on the other hand, if you can't do those things, you probably have no business making one. on top of that, there is a good bit of knowledge about fire safety and the behavior of LP gas and it's materials that one should know before attempting this sort of thing.
In general, if you don't have the mechanical inclination to0 fill in the gaps or improvise a bit you probably won't be able to make a working flamethrower from his recipe, but on the other hand, if you can't do those things, you probably have no business making one. on top of that, there is a good bit of knowledge about fire safety and the behavior of LP gas and it's materials that one should know before attempting this sort of thing.
February 8, 2014
Ugh. This was not the book I wanted it to be. It had too much detail I'm some areas and not nearly enough in others. The worst thing though -- and I nearly stopped reading early on because of it -- was the quiz to see if you are a risk taker. Unlike the largely geeky and solo activities on which the book is focused, the quiz is almost entirely about physical risk taking -- running marathons and climbing mountains. Overall frustrating and not recommended.
January 15, 2023
William Gurstelle must seem to his family members like a big kid. In Absinthe & Flamethrowers [I promise you that there is an ampersand in the title], he describes making rockets from scratch just for the fun of launching them into the air, cracking a bullwhip just because he can, and how to make your own hiking stick and knock someone over with it. I like that he has tried and accomplished many of the man-child "projects" in this book, and like even more that Gurstelle explains in careful detail how and why readers should leave the soft glow of their televisions and try these things for themselves.
There is a short chapter on safety, and with each section of the book, Gurstelle does revisit specific precautions that his audience should take to avoid ending up like Jack Parsons or Mitsugoro Bando VIII. Still, I would not loan this book to the people I know who are convinced safety guidelines are optional--the asshats who pull the trigger at shooting ranges when there are still people downrange retrieving their targets. This book in their hands while thinning the herd of the maturity-impaired might still make them a bigger threat to the people and animals around them.
I am going to keep this book for the recipe for Danger Dogs, the titillating notion of throwing knives in my backyard when I upgrade from house to apartment, and the ability to make my own black powder when the zombie apocalypse comes, but I had some problems with the way that this book is organized. Gurstelle explains the difference between little-t and Big-T risk-takers and talks at some length how he included projects that were "human-focused' rather than "technology-focused." The first project he offers talks about using a ball mill grinder to safely mix chemicals needed for the incendiary projects that follow. I could not find an inexpensive one on Amazon, and even with the low-tech alternatives he provides, the project seems contrary to his definition of one that is human-focused. I also didn't understand why absinthe wasn't bunged in with eating and drinking dangerously, though perhaps he did this to round out his section on dangerous vices.
Regardless, Absinthe & Flamethrowers is still an interesting read and a good reference book to have about if life gets too mediocre and you need (not want, but NEED) to do something out of the ordinary to make yourself feel alive again.
There is a short chapter on safety, and with each section of the book, Gurstelle does revisit specific precautions that his audience should take to avoid ending up like Jack Parsons or Mitsugoro Bando VIII. Still, I would not loan this book to the people I know who are convinced safety guidelines are optional--the asshats who pull the trigger at shooting ranges when there are still people downrange retrieving their targets. This book in their hands while thinning the herd of the maturity-impaired might still make them a bigger threat to the people and animals around them.
I am going to keep this book for the recipe for Danger Dogs, the titillating notion of throwing knives in my backyard when I upgrade from house to apartment, and the ability to make my own black powder when the zombie apocalypse comes, but I had some problems with the way that this book is organized. Gurstelle explains the difference between little-t and Big-T risk-takers and talks at some length how he included projects that were "human-focused' rather than "technology-focused." The first project he offers talks about using a ball mill grinder to safely mix chemicals needed for the incendiary projects that follow. I could not find an inexpensive one on Amazon, and even with the low-tech alternatives he provides, the project seems contrary to his definition of one that is human-focused. I also didn't understand why absinthe wasn't bunged in with eating and drinking dangerously, though perhaps he did this to round out his section on dangerous vices.
Regardless, Absinthe & Flamethrowers is still an interesting read and a good reference book to have about if life gets too mediocre and you need (not want, but NEED) to do something out of the ordinary to make yourself feel alive again.
January 9, 2019
Had some good information, both in designing projects and historical precedents, but it also sounded less about living "artfully dangerous" as the author liked to say, and more like looking cool. Which there is a difference between having a good, if dangerous experience, and just trying to look like you live dangerously. I guess the best example was the chapter where the author talks about smoking and drinking. Yes, technically hobbies or habits that can be hazardous to ones health, but instead of describing how to find a drink or a cigarette/cigar you personally would enjoy, and how to enjoy them in a responsible way, the author literally talks about how to look like a movie star while smoking and how to have the most controversial alcoholic drink just because. That's the underlying issue with this book, every chapter seems to be about how to prove you are dangerous, not actually experience new things that you might not have considered before.
October 3, 2022
I think this book would be 5 stars for a lot of people who will never read it. I think for the people that will, it is mainly preaching to the choir. While I enjoy a healthy dose of confirmation bias as much as the next pyromaniac, I think that this book was most useful in pointing me towards other more in depth books to further pursue my goal of living fast and dying young. Except for the chapter on black powder, I’m quite excited to try that. I think the best use of this book would be to use it as a work book of sorts to accompany the book How to Live Dangerously by Warwick Cairns. It may not have been a needed push for me, but should you find your life lacking danger, I think it’s a worthy read.
March 15, 2018
Entertaining and useful with a twist of trouble.
August 27, 2021
New skills to learn!
April 7, 2022
At best, this is a guidebook for being slightly-scarily eccentric. At worst, this could lead to major property damage or seriously harm people.
Read
September 22, 2016I had issues with this book.
Over half the chapters were exhortations on "Living Life Dangerously" as part of the "Golden Third" of people who take above-average risks but not so far as to become self-destructive. I can somewhat see what the author was going for, but he went out of his way to excoriate the less risk-taking, calling them milquetoasts or "little-t" (T supposedly standing for thrill-seeking but inevitably conjuring the word testosterone). Tirades against a "nanny-state" - however short - make me want to shut any conversation down before I'm being offered off-the-grid land in Montana.
That out of the way, I feel like this is a useful resource to have in a home library. Having an approachable, basic recipe for black powder, rocket engines, and flame-throwers seems like just the type of knowledge I probably will never need but don't want to go scrambling for when I do.
As a final aside, this book is also quintessentially American in its choices of measurements. Only unit-uncertain Yanks would insist on weighing chemicals in grams to heat to temperatures in Fahrenheit to form in to tubes in 16th of an inch and then puncture with a 9-penny nail.
Over half the chapters were exhortations on "Living Life Dangerously" as part of the "Golden Third" of people who take above-average risks but not so far as to become self-destructive. I can somewhat see what the author was going for, but he went out of his way to excoriate the less risk-taking, calling them milquetoasts or "little-t" (T supposedly standing for thrill-seeking but inevitably conjuring the word testosterone). Tirades against a "nanny-state" - however short - make me want to shut any conversation down before I'm being offered off-the-grid land in Montana.
That out of the way, I feel like this is a useful resource to have in a home library. Having an approachable, basic recipe for black powder, rocket engines, and flame-throwers seems like just the type of knowledge I probably will never need but don't want to go scrambling for when I do.
As a final aside, this book is also quintessentially American in its choices of measurements. Only unit-uncertain Yanks would insist on weighing chemicals in grams to heat to temperatures in Fahrenheit to form in to tubes in 16th of an inch and then puncture with a 9-penny nail.
May 7, 2013
I owe quite a bit of this book. This book introduced me to Hunter S. Thompson and possibly even more important... that a safe life is not necessarily a better life. I love this book dearly, it means a lot to me, and the nostalgia goggles are definitely in full force.
At its core you have a man who just wants people to get the most out of life. He gives you the run down of what "edge-working" is, and then gives you a slew of ideas and blueprints to keep pushing that edge. At the end of the day you still have a book that will teach you how to build a flamethrower, and if you ask me, that's still worth a ton.
At its core you have a man who just wants people to get the most out of life. He gives you the run down of what "edge-working" is, and then gives you a slew of ideas and blueprints to keep pushing that edge. At the end of the day you still have a book that will teach you how to build a flamethrower, and if you ask me, that's still worth a ton.
February 19, 2015
Didn't finish this. Very US centric - with some odd views of what entails risk-taking (travelling in Europe, running a marathon ... ambitious activities possibly, but risky????) and some actual stupidity (encouraging high-speed driving on the roads, smoking ... true, it's risky, but how much of an adrenaline rush do you get from get from incrementally increasing the change you'll get cancer?).
Even to the actual title, flamethrowers look fun, and I can see that as a risky, fun activity; but I don't really see drinking absinthe as risky.
Plus the tone is pompous. The voice of someone with a face you want to punch.
Even to the actual title, flamethrowers look fun, and I can see that as a risky, fun activity; but I don't really see drinking absinthe as risky.
Plus the tone is pompous. The voice of someone with a face you want to punch.
January 2, 2014
So awesome. Teaches you how to do/make a bunch of stuff that is dangerous, but legal. The first part of the book goes a bit into the history of a few famous thrill seekers, then it goes into the science. This book gives you the information (like where to buy supplies) and the inclination to try a few things that you might not have had the guts to try before. Here are a few examples: make gunpowder, use a bullwhip, make a flame thrower. This is the adult equivalent of the 'Dangerous Book for Boys'.
January 16, 2010
This is not great literature, nor a true how-to-build stuff. Instead, it is a geek manifesto to let one's curiosity wander, and try things that seem interesting. The particular examples -- drinking absinthe, compounding one's own black powder in the garage -- do not particularly appeal to me, yet I found it a strangely fun read. The exhortation to find ways to move outside of one's own box seems worth listening to.
December 16, 2010
How can you not like a book that guides you through the steps to make black powder?
This is the second in a series by this author of semi-dangerous projects for the backyard (basement) enthusiast. "Semi-" only if you use common sense and safety precautions. Completely dangerous if you ignore them.
I'm waiting anxiously for my son-in-law's visit to try some of these out. (I like him! He's going to help me! I'm not trying these experiments out 'on' him!) The grandkids will love it.
This is the second in a series by this author of semi-dangerous projects for the backyard (basement) enthusiast. "Semi-" only if you use common sense and safety precautions. Completely dangerous if you ignore them.
I'm waiting anxiously for my son-in-law's visit to try some of these out. (I like him! He's going to help me! I'm not trying these experiments out 'on' him!) The grandkids will love it.
July 4, 2009
Paged through this one. Admittedly, I don't live dangerously. I don't even turn the volume up on my headphones past halfway. And my favorite mantra is, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Maybe that's why I picked the book up? The quotes are enjoyable. And taking the thrill and experience seeking evaluation was informative.
September 14, 2009
This book has a lot to offer, but I confess to being a little disappointed. Most of the value that I found was in the psychology or risk-taking rather than the projects that were the intended focal point of the book. Views on risk-taking throughout history are entertaining, but feel like filler in some cases, things just put in to add a few pages. It was okay, but I expected more for my money.
September 10, 2016
summarizing....the author talk down to the reader.....how can you live such a boring life if you aren't building a rocket or flamethrower....
it is not chock full interesting ideas...
i will return this book to the library before the FBI puts me on their terrorist list for reading this....
phew, it was risky just reading this...what a rush
it is not chock full interesting ideas...
i will return this book to the library before the FBI puts me on their terrorist list for reading this....
phew, it was risky just reading this...what a rush
August 29, 2009
This book is intended to help risk-adverse people (little-t) into reasonable risk takers (big-T). As it turns out, I am either a dyed-in-the-wool little-t, or to lazy and apathetic to go to the trouble of becoming a big-T. I might try Absinthe now, though.
November 24, 2019
This is the kind of book that makes me long to own a farm, so that I have an outbuilding or two and some space to tinker with interesting projects. Alas, most of these projects aren't suited to apartment living.
Want to read
January 18, 2010This is an interesting one. My girlfriend gave it to me for Christmas, and a quick glance shows lots of instructions on how to make your own weapons. Flamethrowers, rockets, gunpowder, it's all there. If society crumbles it could be handy.
May 26, 2009
Unanimously voted by the guys as "not nearly as fun as Backyard Ballistics or The Art of the Catapult"
February 17, 2015
I just started it yesterday, but so far, it is enlightening
Want to read
June 12, 2009Two great things, together at long last...
August 25, 2009
library's buying it!!
July 14, 2011
Fun read. Lots of crazy experiments in this one.
January 19, 2010
Not nearly as exciting as I hoped. Unless you're really into making your own fireworks, there's not a lot of specifically-useful information.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews