 | By: JH Brunvand Binding: Paperback Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN: 039332088X ISBN-13: 9780393320886 Released: 17 Oct 2001 RRP: Average Rating:  |
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE is an assemblage of over 200 such stories gathered by Jan Brunvand, who is an expert, perhaps obsessively so, on the subject. They cover a wide range of source topics: pets, criminals, cars, sex, accidents, babies, work, technology, human nature, mistaken ID, academia, food, the supernatural, wild animals, & more. They inspire laughter, horror, disbelief, or just plain "Oh, yuck!" Each story is followed by a paragraph, sometimes lengthy, on the times & places the anecdote, or some variant of it, has appeared. Some go back to the 19th century. After the first twenty-five or so, I decided to leave this last bit to the truly compulsive.
My favorite was the one about the American couple staying at the Moscow hotel during the bad old Soviet era. Obsessed with the possible presence of listening devices, the couple searched the room for "bugs". Finding only a metal plate under the carpet, they removed the screws from it. The next morning on checkout, the desk manager asked if they'd spent a pleasant night. He was concerned since the couple in the room below our intrepid travelers had the chandelier falll on them. My wife said she's never seen me laugh so hard.
The trouble with these stories is that they have no developing plot, no hero to love, & no villain to hate. Like eating popcorn, the experience, however delightful, ends with the last kernel/paragraph. Nobody ever exclaims, "Wow, I had a great bag of popcorn last week!" Similarly, I doubt this book will stay memorable for more than a minute. As reading for those contemplative moments in the loo, it stands out with a capital "L" for Light.
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