This book is very well written and organized, with interesting facts and pictures. Can be read strait through or just used as a bathroom reader. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the macabre! ( )

I love the type of books that list all sorts of weird shit, so "Final Exits" is almost the perfect book for me. Turning to a random page, we see death by custard pie to the face, death by street sweeper and death by cockroach. and of course the infamous Enumclaw horse case gets a run.

Some of the stories you may wish to take with a grain of salt (although I'm sure you'll find a gruesome salt-related story in here) but overall an enjoyable if unsettling read. ( )

While this book will make you afraid to leave your house, or even your room, it will make you appreciate the life you're living. There're so many bad things that can happen in the world that you should live life to the fullest. ( )

I really thought that I would like this book more than I did. I'm a morbid sort of person, and having a huge book (it's over 400 pages) full of different ways to die seemed, well, intriguing. And it really is.

But.

The research going into this book had to be immense, and therefore I tried to be kind about the numerous inaccuracies and spelling errors. Eventually, however, they just annoyed me to no end. Here are just a few:

(p. 405) "[Albert Einstein] died in 1955...when an aorta in his stomach exploded."

What. Yes, Albert Einstein died of an aortic aneurysm, but this is just so wrongly worded. By saying "an aorta," the author is implying that there is more than one. There is not. There is one aorta, which has different sections (thoracic and abdominal), but there is just ONE aorta. And it's not in your stomach, although it does give branches that feed the stomach - it's in the abdomen. Yes, I know a lot of non-medical people call their entire abdomen their stomach, but come on, I'm expecting more here. And it did not "explode," which is just ridiculous hyperbole. It ruptured.

(p. 338) "William Henry Harrison was reelected president in 1840."

No sir, he was not. William Henry Harrison was elected president for the first (and only, as he was about to die) time in 1840. The author also states that William Henry Harrison was sixty-nine when "reelected" [sic]. He was actually sixty-eight. Granted, only a year off, but still...how many errors exactly were in this book?

(p. 301) "Alfred Packer killed five prospectors with a pick ax...[and] was released on a technicality [and] died in 1899 from ulcers."

There is so much wrong with this statement! First off, Alfred Packer died in 1907, not 1899 (he was still in prison in 1899). And he didn't die from ulcers - his official cause of death was listed as "senility - trouble and worry," although most believe that he either died of a stroke or an epileptic seizure (he was a life-long epileptic). And he was not released on a technicality; he was paroled by the outgoing Colorado governor in 1901. He did escape the death penalty under a technicality, but he still served a prison sentence. And he didn't kill with a pick ax, but a skinning knife (and possibly a bullet).

If there is so much wrong with just THREE items (there were more that I caught), I can't imagine how many inaccuracies are in this book, and therefore I looked at it with a very critical eye. ( )

Excellent book. Great compilation of deaths from A-Z. I pick it up every now and then and it always makes me laugh or shocks me. ( )