This Book Is Not a Toy!: Friendly Advice on How to Avoid Death and Other Inconveniences Book

THIS BOOK IS NOT A TOY!

Friendly Advice on How To Avoid Death and Other Inconveniences

- Our brain: 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 forewarned: This Book Is Not A Toy! will have you laughing all the way to the blood bank.