Connie Post of the Dayton Daily News reviewed my new book, The World’s Worst. She says: “We think his new book, The World’s Worst: A Guide to the Most Disgusting, Hideous, Inept, and Dangerous People, Places, and Things on Earth (Chronicle, $10.95), is just plain awful. So much so that we love it.”
She also summarized some of the 50 or so all-true stories of awfulness that appear in the book:
CREEPIEST TOY MAKER: Think back to your childhood. Remember sprinkling ‘Instant Life’ in the tiny aquarium, then anxiously waiting for The Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys to hatch? That was the brainchild of Harold von Braunhut, also the inventor of X-Ray Spex. Those sea monkeys were really brine shrimp, and no, they didn’t wear crowns as depicted on the package. Lame toys weren’t Braunhut’s only interest. An anti-Zionist, he purportedly purchased guns for some Ohio Klansmen. Oh yeah, he was Jewish.
MOST DISGUSTING BEVERAGE: In parts of Asia kopi luwak is a highly prized cup of joe made of coffee beans that can cost $150 per pound. What’s so magical about these beans? It’s the way they’re processed – eaten then eliminated by civet cats. Surely you recall those weasel-like critters linked to the deadly SARS virus. Frauenfelder told me he’s never tried kopu luwak but boasted, ‘My editor’s had it and says it’s great.’ An editor’s drink. I get it. Ha ha ha.
MOST STUBBORN SOLDIER: In 1945 the United States dropped leaflets on the Lubang Island in the Philippines, announcing the war was over. But a young Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onoda wouldn’t believe it. For decades he ate bananas and raided farmers and villagers, whom he thought were U.S. spies. In 1974 Onoda finally put down his gun at the request of his commanding officer, then a bookstore owner who’d come from Osaka, Japan, to talk some sense into the middle-aged man. Onoda returned home as a war hero then moved to Brazil to become a cattle rancher. ‘If these stories weren’t true, they wouldn’t be any fun,” Frauenfelder told me.
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