Cannibal Fat Camp

Cannibal Fat CampThe cover of this book is great, an obvious homage to GARBAGE PAIL KIDS, and it delivers on the image. It really delivers. If you want some gory, hilarious fun, pick this up. The cover really says it all. And as a chubby guy, the fat humor is luckily done in a way that doesn't really offend, but celebrates in a black humor way. I strangely got hungry often while reading the book.

The best part about CANNIBAL FAT CAMP is the prose and structure of the narrative. Clever devices like forms, letters, and reports help deliver the story in a fresh, hip way. With a huge amount of buildup, we don't see any deaths until 1/3 the way through, which is a huge strength here. There is nothing supernatural about FAT CAMP, it could realistically happen, and the deliberate pace and build up form a real world around the reader. The writing on display here is really wonderful.

It feels mildly like a love-letter to William Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES, but never overtly so. It definitely has its own unique vision, ad the tale is told in a confident way. By virtue of the name alone, you get the idea that CANNIBAL FAT CAMP will eventually have some campers dying, and probably going insane. This delivers.

Camp Tum Tum is an exclusive weight loss camp for the rich and famous parents of the world (to send their kids too). It is on a deserted desert island, that, after you again read the title, you as the reader will "gulp" when you realize how remote it is. You know carnage is coming! FAT CAMP uses the simple one two set up. Step one, they set you up with a great backdrop for the story. Step two, they knock it out of the park and deliver all the gore and madness you would expect from a cover/title like this!

Add in a killer ending, and I give this 5/5 burgers with cheese and onion. Hold the veggies.

If you're undecided what to order off the horror menu, might I suggest Cannibal Fat Camp? It's a tasty morsel of outlandish humor blended with deep rich horror guaranteed to satisfy and not overstuff.

Fat is a four letter word. A group of overweight teens head off to an island in hopes of shedding a few pounds at an eight week fat camp. Through an unfortunate event, the kids find themselves without adult supervision. Hormones rage amongst rumbling stomachs as a leader emerges and takes control. The once benevolent king quickly becomes a ruthless dictator. It's survival of the fattest as finding food becomes a daily struggle.

Bram Stoker Award nominee Mark C. Scioneaux and award-winning writer/actor/filmmaker/college professor/pro wrestler and all around hack David C. Hayes join together to create one fun tale of meaty madness.

If your kid comes back from fat camp and tells you he wants to have a friend over for lunch, ask a few specific questions what they might have in mind . . . just so there won't be any unwanted surprises. Come get you some 5 star fun right here!

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Looking for a good scary dish? Try Cannibal Fat Camp, a fast paced story about privileged overweight teens taken to a 8 week course on how to lose weight and eat right, well that WAS the plan. But as we all know something goes horribly horribly wrong!

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17 year old Miles had a problem. A huge problem. He was morbidly overweight and could not control his eating. After getting in trouble AGAIN for stealing his classmates' lunches, he had a choice: go to Camp TumTum and get his eating problem under control, or face expulsion. Feeling a bit hopeless, he agreed to see the doctor to be recommended for the camp. After meeting the once obese but now athletic and perfect counselor, he was looking forward to going to the posh resort-like camp hidden away on a secluded tropical island. On his second day at camp, he and the other campers found themselves alone when all of the counselors died from drinking poisoned protein shakes. In a panic, the campers stress ate all of the camp's food, leaving them to find a way to survive until they were rescued. Some campers had other plans.

I loved this book and flew through it quickly. The characters were great! It was interesting to delve into the psyche of Miles. I wanted him to succeed! Charles was by far the most twisted character I've read in a while. Jenny was kind and smart, the perfect person to save these kids, but the right thing doesn't always happen. I loved learning parts of the experience from journal entries and letters home.

The writing was excellent. The transition between journal entries and regular text was seamless. The doctor's report was hilariously offensive and made me wonder what doctors REALLY put in reports of these types! The adult characters in this book were as unique and the children, making the entire story flow nicely. This book has two authors, and I couldn't tell where one left off and the other began. I love that!

The violence and gore. Oh yes, this book has that in abundance! A veritable buffet of insanity, guts, blood and sex! Those scenes were very descriptive and lived through the horror with these kids, albeit with an adult thought process (which included me adding a lot of WTF's and OMG's out loud. My only gripe with this book, and it's really not a big one, was that I didn't get to "see" the final battle play out. I think that scene would have been better if it wasn't done as a newspaper article, although the article was quite interesting.

The ending. Oh my! I didn't see that coming! I closed that book...er shut off my kindle... with a grin. I can see no more perfect ending than that! All in all, AMAZING book!

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This book was grotesquely entertaining. I read a previous review that said that it was reminiscent of Lord of the Flies and I agree. I thought that through out the story. In a fantastic way. It was well written, well paced and a freakishly fun read. I was actually pleasantly surprised when I read it because, from the beginning, I thought that the story was going to go in a different direction. I was surprised by the ending, which I adore and pretty rarely happens to me like this. I kind of want to see a follow up where Miles starts his own Fat Camp...

Your Child's Health: The Parents' Guide to Symptoms, Emergencies, Common Illnesses, Behavior, and Sc

Your Child's Health: The Parents' Guide to Symptoms, Emergencies, Common Illnesses, Behavior, and School ProblemsWhen I had my first baby in 1997, I bought A LOT of child care/medical reference books. My purchases included work by Dr. Spock, Dr. Sears, Penelope Leach, and Dr. Brazelton. "Your Child's Health" is the only one that I still have.

First, this book is organized in a VERY useful way. For each type of issue/illness, there is a quick summary that leads you quickly to an understanding of what you probably should do for your child right now, tomorrow or at your next doctor's appointment.

This book also helps to calm nervous parents. The section about fevers is a great example of this. Barton acknowledges that fevers are scary for parents. He then provides calming words, clear facts and direction about when you really need to worry.

This book does break down when it comes to issues that I consider cultural or social in nature. I do not think that this author is an expert about family beds, breast feeding or feeding schedules. I think that he is simply expressing views that were in vogue when he was in med school. I would strongly reccomend Dr. Sears or the La Leche League for more thorough and thoughtful information on these subjects.

Despite this small weakness, I think that this is a book that every family with babies and small children MUST have.

I use to work on the Pediatric floor of a local hospital for over 15 years, I wish I had known about THIS book then! A few years ago I started working at an "advice" nurse line. This book was used to create some of the Pediatric guidelines. The nurses call this book the "Pediatric Bible"!

The first time I used the book was for a call about a child with a ring stuck on her finger. I told the mom what to do and it worked! From that time on, I have told parents to get this book. If you don't have access to an advice nurse line, I highly recomend you get this book. The information is easy for any parent to understand. It's straightforward information to ease any parents mind.

One of my co-workers even gives this book as part of a wonderful basket of goodies for baby showers! What a great idea!!!

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As this book is nearly a decade old, it desperately needs updating. It makes little or no reference to attachment parenting, "child-wearing", or co-sleeping. Prescription information is woefully outdated. Current research on breast-feeding is obviously non-existent and the ear thermometer (a device available for over five years now) was, at the time of this book "not yet available for public use." In today's day and age, you should not have to risk your child's health relying on out-dated information.

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I got this book before my now 2 1/2 year old boy was born, I was given several books, and this is by far the best one. I have used this book several times, and it has sure helped in notify doctors of the problem even if it is over the phone. I have had friends come over and call at all hours asking me to check certain things out in this book. I would definately recommened this to all mothers and fathers

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Caregiver's Handbook: A Complete Guide to Home Health Care

Caregiver's Handbook: A Complete Guide to Home Health CareAn extremely useful reference for safely caring for the sick or the elderly. Practical suggestions for everything from eyedrops to incontinence, including excellent illustrations of techniques and equipment. I've recommended it to several people.

If someone close to you has become sick, disabled or aging is taking its toll, then the Visiting Nurse Association of America offers their advice on how to be a more effective caregiver. They realize that you also need support when providing care to others.

The first chapter explains how you can become a caregiver, the benefits of home care, how your relationship will change, how you should take time for yourself, how to understand how you are feeling and asks: "Are you coping?"

Home Hygiene, healthy eating, bed comfort, maintaining mobility, personal care, wound care, facing death, emergency care and communication is discussed in detail.

There are step-by-step photographs to show you how to change someone's position in bed or how to use a hair washing tray for those who are flat on their backs in bed. Since you will need to order supplies for home care, a complete section of useful addresses also includes Web site information.

There were a few items I had never thought of. If you are pushing someone in a wheelchair, you might want to lower the chair backwards down a stair as the occupant could fall out of the chair and even if you had tilted the chair backwards, it could become unstable. They also show how you can adapt a bathroom for someone who would otherwise need help and installing various items can help you save time.

There is a chart which explains the stages of grief. First you will go through denial, then anger and finally acceptance. Allowing yourself to go through these stages can be very healing and during the unsettling time of a death, you will take these steps, even as a caregiver. There are many sidebars with "case studies" which show how the advice can be used in real life.

A patients bill of rights is included. A glossary of medical conditions helps to explain a few main illnesses. Through reading this book you will gain more information on caregiving skills and how to administer emergency and calming care.

If you feel a bit of anxiety about caregiving, this book will give you many answers to your questions and put your mind at ease.

~The Rebecca Review

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Survival Mom: How to Prepare Your Family for Everyday Disasters and Worst-Case Scenarios

Survival Mom: How to Prepare Your Family for Everyday Disasters and Worst-Case ScenariosThis is the absolute best preparedness book, ever, for average people in urban, suburban and rural areas. I've been following Lisa Bedford's "SurvivalMom" blog for a couple of years, pre-ordered this book and devoured it after it arrived. The comprehensive and well-organized guidance can take a person from zero preparedness to eclipsing 95% of the population with just one trip to the grocery store and a couple hours shopping on the Internet. Today I'm ordering copies for my sister and a couple friends who live near the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the Pacific Northwest and recommending on Facebook for everyone else. Really terrific contribution to promoting and facilitating preparedness. This book is obviously a project of an exceptionally detailed-oriented person who has devoted years to assembling the latest, most useful information in an accessible, efficient manner. The author also helpfully relates her personal experiences in going from a mom focused on getting her family through normal everyday life to one steeped in emergency preparedness scenarios and practical strategies for persevering (comfortably, if possible) through events ranging from routine power outages to being stranded on the road as well as longer-term situations. She also does not shy away from matters usually associated with survivalists -such as the need to not just be able to feed and shelter but also to be prepared to defend oneself and family. The Survival Mom book coupled with wilderness survival knowledge would put someone way ahead of the game (she briefly touches on some wilderness skills -like fire-starters -but does not, for instance, tell how to build a teepee, trap game or do other hard-core wilderness skills -there are plenty of other books on those subjects). In sum, this book is a great value and a keeper.

Living in California about 5 miles from the Hayward and San Andreas fault, you've got to think about the "what ifs". Think it can't happen to you? Think again.... I used to live in Michigan where an ice storm has taken out the power for 2 weeks in the dead of winter. No matter where you live, the unexpected can happen.

"Survival Mom" covers the basics including food storage, water purification, financial and medical preparedness and communication during a crisis. It goes way beyond the basics, however, with the addition of charts, checklists and worksheets to help you stay organized.

A great way to get ready for that 6.5 to 7.5 quake we know will happen someday in San Francisco.

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I received an advanced copy from the publisher and I've got to say, this book does an outstanding job of filling a long standing need a survival book for your typical homemaker. I have an entire floor-to-ceiling bookshelf full of survival books and my wife hates every one of them. This book however, is something she would sit down and read! Reading the book, it is immediate evident that it was written by a mom for moms. Not that men can't read it, it reads just fine for me, but it is very different in its tone and presentation.

If you've been wanting to get your wife more involved in preparedness then get her this book! She might finally understand what you've been going on about!

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I was as excited to receive my copy of Survival Mom. I know you're supposed to be neutral before you start reading, but I will admit I had high expectations for this book. Having visited The Survival Mom blog for a couple of years, I know it is my "go-to" place to find out about emergency preparedness and survival information.

The book is well organized and describes every facet of preparedness including having the proper mindset and avoiding panic, water and food storage, organizing your home to optimize space, learning to live without electricity, finances, safety and security and much more. I recommend reading it from start to finish to get the most out of the book, but busy readers who have an agenda in mind can easily jump around and choose a chapter they are most concerned about. Throughout the book are interesting anecdotes, quizzes, quotes and lists that enhance learning and add variety to your reading experience. The tone is light, and never alarming or oppressive.

The book met and exceeded my expectations, and I highly recommend it. Whether you are new to preparedness, intermediate or a veteran, you will find this book a valuable resource to keep in your survival library.

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Are you confused with all the "prepping" or "survival" info out there? Wonder who or what to believe? Do you wonder why, how and where to start, or how to assess and beef up your prepping efforts? Do you want the hype-free message with no sale pressure?

If so, you will love this book, Survival Mom: How to Prepare Your Family for Everyday Disasters and Worst-Case Scenarios

by Lisa Bedford.

Chapter One sets the tone for the entire book, "Prepare More, Panic Less." This is the message that comes through loud and clear. It matters not what the motivation is for our family preparations (whether natural disaster, job layoff, illness or something bigger), Lisa Bedford takes us step by step from awareness to action, starting with her own story in the introduction entitled "From Suburban Mom to Survival Mom."

Let's face it, the media is grabbing ahold of this "prepping" movement and is bringing it into the forefront and making it mainstream. People who never thought about storing food, water or extra blankets are now taking cues from tornado and hurricane survivors and packing 72 hour kits. With the reality shows such as "Doomsday Preppers" (no matter what your opinion of it, the show is topping the ratings and people are becoming aware of the need to prepare) and its copycats "Doomsday Bunkers" and those to follow, there are some Doom-and-Gloomers out there who are preaching panic and preying on those who are panicking.

Lisa Bedford's message says not so fast! On page 15 she recites "The #1 Rule of Preparedness... Do your best where you are with what you have."

From water to sanitation, food to organization and decluttering, from home security to survival finances, gardening, growing, preserving to living without electricity, from just starting out to seasoned "preppers" this book is one to have. Survival Mom was birthed and penned by a real-life wife and mom to other moms (but men can definitely identify) laid out in terms, reasoning and actions that we moms understand and relate to.

Great book to have on hand for the extensive checklists and information and it's the one that I will give to my family members who have not begun yet and don't know where to begin.

This book is for the whole family and has resources to get the whole family involved.

For my full review please go here:

I am an independent reviewer. I did not receive payment for my review, nor was there any expectation of a positive review. I did receive a copy of the book to complete my review.

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Forensic Psychology

Forensic PsychologyJust starting to explore the subject and considering pursuing forensic psychology on a journey I haven't been before. I could not get myself away from this book. It was informative, intriguing, and written in a manner that made it quite easy to understand and form a decision to go for it!!!

It is a book that any student or mental health professional should have. It is easy to read, explains legal concepts concisesly.

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Fitness For Dummies

Fitness For DummiesThese authors love to shop as much as they love to exercise.

As a fitness neophyte, I turned once again to the Dummies series for its comprehensive, unbiased coverage of broad topics. What disappointed me about this selection is its enthusiasm for expensive gadgetry, club memberships, and professional consultation.

Admittedly, a healthy lifestyle isn't without a price tag, but this is ridiculous. In almost every chapter of this book (including a couple devoted entirely to the subject), you can expect to find one or more words of advice encouraging the reader to go shell out some more dough for one thing or another a heart monitor, a personal trainer, a water pack, a dietician, a special mat for stretching exercises, etc. If you bought every item they recommended throughout the course of this book, you'd spend a full year's salary and fill a bedroom with all your new junk!

While they do advise against some of the more foolish purchases, such as those fat-zapping electrodes sold on infomercials, they spend little time extolling the virtues of those invaluable exercises you can do for free stair walking, push ups, pull ups, etc. The chapter on exercising at home is a veritable catalog of the fanciest equipment money can buy, rather than suggestions of exercises you can do on a bare floor with your own body weight.

The authors also go a little skimpy on such topics as nutrition and weight training, but make darn sure to point you in the direction of other related titles in the "for Dummies" series.

If you generally like the Dummies books, do a little more shopping before you put your faith in this one.

When I bought this book I thought it would cover all the basics (= for dummies) and allow me to start working on my own at home.

To my disappointment this book contains very little needed info to do that.

Example there are three pages about stretching, giving rules such as "Stretch all your muscles, not just those you've used in your workout", with the chapter describing the muscles coming up 45 pages later. I'd expect :

1. The chapter about muscles to be close to or preceding the section about stretching. The design keeps the relevant info too far apart.

2. A list of stretching excercises to be given with pictures. No excercises are given at all (though there are plenty of space given to useless pictures, e.g. of a computerized bike panel), denying me the info I need.

The section recommends buying a video that shows how to stretch. For the price of a video and a video cassete (about $300 in Israel) I could get personal training.

The "Nutrition Basics" chapter is another disappointment five and a half pages are spent on vitamins providing less information than given in leaflets given for free in pharmacies, the section about titled "Watch Your Calories" gives trivial advice, and no table of caloric values of different kinds of foods is included, etc.

I find this book very disappointing, will not buy any other "for dummies" books, and will sell this book at a second hand books store at least I'll get some of my money back and not waste any shelve space on this useless book.

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If only all Dummies books were as good as this one. Extremely well-written with the most clear language one could ever hope for. Full of anecdotes, definitions, and plenty of myth busters. The personalization from the authors gets tiring ("Suzanne thinks that...", "Liz's grandmother once..."), but it is tolerable. Many, many aspects of fitness are covered in remarkable thoroughness. General weight lifting (both at home and the gym), supplements, gym etiquette, trainer tips, aerobic machines and classes, and fitness video buying are all covered with impressive detail. (If buying this book used, be sure to get the 2nd edition as it covers many topics that didn't exist with the first edition: Pilates, Physio balls, elliptical trainers, Bikram Yoga, and more.)

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I've read several beginner fitness books and I feel this is the most complete and best organized of them all. This has gotten me motivated and started on the right fitness program for me (I've since confirmed with a personal trainer). Honest and accurate fitness information is laid out in an easily understood way (without any questionable product endorsements). No "summary" style book is going to have everything, but they have enough information that you feel like everything else is fine tuning.

To address the concerns of another reviewer, the 2nd edition of this book does discuss common fitness injuries.

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If you've been rather inactive in the recent past, this book will help you to get moving. It not only helped me to plan a well-rounded fitness program, but it really helped me to get motivated. The writing is clear and simple, and the authors do a good job at cutting through the jargon fog and giving you the essentials. and, of course, there's that "For Dummies" humor throughout. Best of all, it's cheaper than a personal trainer. In fact, if you need a personal trainer, this book has great advice on chooding a trainer that's right for you!

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The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions (101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions and 99 More Un

The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese InventionsI wrote and published this review in The Journal of Irreproducible Results, vol. 49, no. 6, November 2005:

Rube Goldberg founded the modern era of humorous inventions in the US, and Heath Robinson did the same in the UK, in the first half of the 1900s. Even now, "Rube Goldberg contraptions" call to mind not only his cartooning style but his inventive wit.

The genre simplified and expanded with Jacques Carelman's The Catalogue of Fantastic Inventions (St. Martins, 1984), and Steven M. Johnson's What the World Needs Now (Ten Speed, 2001). David E. H. Jones takes a decidedly more scientific, less cartooned approach in The Inventions of Dædalus (Freeman, 1982) and The Further Inventions of Dædalus (Oxford University Press, 1999).

When the genre twisted and turned to Japan, it developed into Chindogu. If a humorous invention serves a real, everyday purpose ... but not well; if it is actually made and photographed; if its humor is a byproduct of solving a problem ... then it may be "chindogu". See www.chindogu.com. A bento box is a multi-purpose lunchbox, but that concept is the merest appetizer for these.

200 inventions fill 300 pages in this charming full-color compendium. Many are in classes by themselves, such as the nail-polish dryer for 5 fingers at once. But certain issues recur:

* Attach mops to crawling babies, pets, and shoes.

* Portable signage allows you to unroll a zebra-crosswalk at a convenient place in the road; to put a women's-restroom sign over a men's; and to mark parking space lines around your car, wherever you leave it.

* An extra hand can cover your mouth politely; hold veggies perilously close to a cutting knife; and even help count fingers.

* Umbrellas could be supported from a hat or headbelt, or little ones attached to shoes or camera, or given full-length transparent sides to keep you dry all the way down.

* Just as a Swiss Army knife combines many hand tools, a giant handle could combine gardening tools; pockets in a necktie or hooks on a belt could hold office necessities; hooks on an apron could hold kitchen utensils; and each finger of a glove could be tipped with its own tool.

Shoes, crowded subways, and taking snapshots also come up often.

Sure enough, I found no use for any item in the whole book. But many motifs, several methods, and some attitudes look like I ought to be able to apply them somewhere or other, either for a laugh or for something (chindogu notwithstanding) actually useful.

By the way, while "humorous inventions" seems like a category, libraries haven't invented a single number to find them under. I found some in art (NC1429, NC1499, NK1125); in science at Q167, and in technology at T20 and this one at T27. In Dewey, check 741.5.

(2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)I took one look at this amusing book and immediately understood why only the Japanese would revel in these wacky inventions which they call "chindogu". As a Japanese-American myself, I understand the high value placed on self-sufficiency and time-efficiency in their daily existences. After all, these are the people who came up with sleeping tubes and subway passenger pushers. Designer and author Kenji Kawakami and translator Dan Papia promote 200 of these funky devices that range from the conceivably helpful to the hysterically absurd. The humor comes from not only the devices but also the straight-faced photos of the devices in action and the accompanying text that captures the pure huckster cheese of an airline mail-order magazine. Kawakami provides the top ten tenets of chindogu to set the stage for what follows. He considers a chindogu a failure if it is slightly useful, a success if it captures the spirit of anarchy. They cannot be invented simply for humor. They must exist as a prototype but never be patented or sold. Kawakami understands that there is no gadget so unuseless that somebody out there would not buy it if offered, and in this regard, the Japanese have shown more discretion than Americans who would submit their patent applications on a dime.

Expect to giggle quite a bit perusing this book, and here are a few of my particular favorites:

* Diet dishes rice bowls cut in half with a mirror inserted to make them seem like full bowls, marketed with the tagline "Satisfy your hunger with a culinary optical illusion".

* Portable subway straps straps hung on a suction cup that you would place on the ceiling of a particularly crowded subway car. I could easily see using this on BART during rush hour.

* Hay fever hat a chin-strapped ring hat with a toilet paper dispenser mounted on top to allow you to sneeze without incident.

* Stormy sky tie an updated variation of the clip-on tie that doubles as a collapsible umbrella in front.

* Baby mops a sleep-suit quipped with mop-heads so that when the baby is on the floor, he/she can mop the floor at the same time. There are the similarly functional duster slippers for cats. Why not put your toddlers and pets to use on your household chores?

* Portable zebra crossing a rolled-up piece of plastic mimicking a crosswalk pattern so one has the inarguable right-of-way on busy streets.

* Self-portrait camera stick a 57-cm telescoping pole which allows young and apparently shy couples to take pictures of themselves without having to bother passing strangers. The only sacrifice is the constant appearance of the pole in every shot.

The last two actually reflect the Japanese tendency to "save face" by not intruding on others' lives for their own convenience. Consequently I don't think these would translate too well overseas. This is truly a big bento box of fun for those who enjoy the silliness that results from inventive minds focused on the immediacy of their own environments. However, the book also illustrates how close we are in realizing much of this type of seemingly trivial inventions with what we see in Sharper Image and Brookstone catalogs. That may be the primary allure of this pink tome, the fact that we end up laughing at ourselves for ideas we may not have been creative or motivated enough to make real.

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This book of chindogu features some of the most humorous and ingenious inventions ever, inventions so impractical yet addressing real world problems, that they are referred to as "unuseless." The inventions remind me of Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam's cartoons gone horribly awry. Editor Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall explains the concept nicely in the foreword: all these inventions are real and have been manufactured, but to qualify as a real chindogu, the device must be completely impracticable in the real world. Readers are even invited to join and submit chindogu of their own to the International Chindogu Academy. (I am thinking of submitting a Marmoset Crauncher.)

The word "chindogu" was appropriated for these inventions as it is Japanese for "odd or distorted tool." That is a perfect description of these items. There are too many for me to list, but all are beautifully explained and illustrated. Some of my favorites include: "Duster Slippers For Cats," in which housecats don dustmops on their paws to assist with household chores (the illustration is priceless); "The Noodle Eater's Hair Guard," which is the silly pink contraption on the cover; "The Back Scratcher's T-Shirt" (which is not only funny, it borders on a good idea); the "Portable Subway Strap" (for those who enjoy holding onto a plunger affixed to the roof of a train); and the "Ear Extender," which gets my vote for best decorative headgear made from colanders.

This is a funny book, and is beautifully rendered in color throughout. The only warning I have is that if you read this in long sittings, eventually you may find yourself saying "Hey, that's a pretty good idea!" (I had this thought when looking at the "Butterstick.") I recommend this book to lovers of the odd and obscure everywhere.

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When my daughter invented a biofeedback-based antisnoring device (a stethoscope-like device with ear pieces and a sound-gathering tube taped beneath the nose) for a high school science fair, little did I realize that she had practiced Chindogu, or the art of creating an object that sounds useful and that almost satisfies a need... except for the fact that it fails in some essential way. Author Kenji Kawakami, whose International Chindogu Society promotes this wonderfully wacky art form, has compiled "The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions" to celebrate the best of Chindogu.

Each of the 200 inventions includes a description and one or more color photographs of someone modeling or demonstrating the product. How can I begin to list the many types of devices found in this off-the-wall collection? There are many items of apparel ranging from a backscratcher's T-shirt with an itch grid ("Could you please scratch my back at F6?") to training high heels with stabilizer wheels. For the workaholics, there are an office tie and tool belt, each with handy compartments to hold business cards, a calculator, telephone, pens, and other office essentials. There are many umbrella devices, such as the full-body umbrella, an umbrella golf club, and shoe umbrellas to avoid nasty rain puddle splashes. For dieters there are a magnifying fork and dishes that hold half the food they seem to through the use of mirrors. For the handyman there are Swiss army gloves and lawn mower sandals. For the water hater there's a bath body suit to keep you dry no matter how long you soak in the tub. For the claustrophobe, there are wide-angle glasses to make that cramped apartment look roomy. For the ultimate in personal hygiene there are a two-sided toothbrush that cuts brushing time in half and a pair of eye drop funnel glasses. I could go on and on... but I'll leave you with this final gem: the solar-powered flashlight. What would be more impractical than that?

These Chindogu do a masterful job at spoofing our insatiable need for gadgets. The deadpan photos of people using these items are hilarious. Not only will you laugh, but you might really crave a more refined version of some of these products. You might even be inspired to create an unuseless invention of your own. This book is a lot of fun!

Eileen Rieback

Want The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions (101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions and 99 More Un Discount?

This book is hysterically funny and so creative. A great gift.

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