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Dreadful Fates by Tracey Turner (view source)
Revision as of 16:43, 21 March 2018
, 16:43, 21 March 2018no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox2
|title=Dreadful Fates
|author=Tracey Turner
|reviewer=John Lloyd
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=112
|publisher=A & C Black Publishers Ltd
|date=March 2010
|isbn=978-1408124215
|amazonukaznuk=<amazonuk>1408124211</amazonuk>|amazonusaznus=1408124211|cover=<amazonus>1408124211</amazonus>
}}
Here is a chocolate coffin, the travels of Einstein's brain, and more. So much more, in fact, there are trivia here I didn't know of – such as the kidnapping and ransom demand over Charlie Chaplin's remains, and the so-called Cucumber King of Burma.
There are quite a few foodstuffs in these pages, considering it's a book about corpses and what we do to them. Which brings me a little to the flaw I find here – in the end it is just “too” ''too'' random, too scattershot. There are at least three people dying from bananas – and not all in the way you might think. The layout of packing so many short paragraphs on the page as possible, in a nice, cosy style that is never much more complex than a tabloid headline, is excellent, but a greater coherence would be better, when there are so many instances of things that could be strung together.
Beyond that personal opinion, there is no reason for me to not recommend this book. Suitably ghoulish, in style, design and content, it should not scare off any adults wanting to browse, and it succeeds its remit of educating in an entertaining way. It certainly fills that unexpected gap I mentioned very nicely.
File this next to the [[:Category:Tracey Turner|same author]]'s [[Deadly Peril and How To Avoid It by Tracey Turner|Deadly Peril and How To Avoid It]] - a book on how not to die so easily.
{{amazontext|amazon=1408124211}} {{waterstonestextamazonUStext|waterstonesamazon=68265141408124211}}
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[[Category:Confident Readers]]