To die, kick the bucket, to meet your Maker, dead as a doornail, get whacked, smoked, bite the dust, sleep with the fishes, go six feet under—whatever death is called, it's going to happen. In 1789 Ben Franklin wrote, "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." Death remains a certainty. But how do we die? It's the enormous variety of how that enlivens final exits. According to death certificates, in 1700 there were less than 100 causes of death. Today there are 3,000. With each advance of technology, people find new ways to become deceased, often causing trends that peak in the first year. People are now killed by everything, from cell phones, washing machines, lawn mowers and toothpicks, to the boundless catalog of man—made medicines. In Final Exits the causes of death—bizarre or common—are alphabetically arranged and include actual accounts of people, both famous and ordinary, who unfortunately died that way. (Ants, bad words, Bingo, bean bag chairs, flying cows, frozen toilets, hiccups, lipstick, moray eels, road kill, starfish, and toupees are only some of the more unusual causes.)

Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die

Humor & Entertainment

Largo, Michael

Puzzles & Games

William Morrow Paperbacks

No matter what your station in society, everybody has to go sometime. Even the wealthy, powerful, and world-renowned must ultimately meet their Maker—though some have departed this life more ignobly than they might have wished. <ul>
<li>From Mozart to rock and roll, which performers ended their lives on the wrong note? </li> <li>What famous U.S. bridge is named after an explorer who was eaten by cannibals? </li> <li>Everyone wants to hit the lottery, but does Lady Luck visit winners with deadly fangs? </li> <li>Plus: Learn the real fate of Gilligan's Island castaways and all your favorite TV actors as well as famous writers, senators, saints, dictators, and philosophers, among many others.</li> </ul>
 Michael Largo, the man who illuminated readers on the myriad ways of death in Final Exits, has compiled a fascinating, off-beat, and darkly humorous necrology that provides the grim, often outrageous details about the passing of influential persons. Meticulously researched—employing archaeological records, published obituaries, official documents, and forensic evidence—this authoritative, one-of-a-kind reference presents the unabashed truth about a multitude of celebrity deaths, while examining the various deeds, misdeeds, and lifestyle quirks that hastened the demise and determined the departed's role in history and popular myth. The Portable Obituary has the skinny on what made our late icons—whether through overindulgence or neglect: on the john, in the sack, or in some spectacular accident—what they are today: dead!

The Portable Obituary: How the Famous, Rich, and Powerful Really Died

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

What is the price of brilliance? Why are so many creative geniuses also ruinously self-destructive? From Caravaggio to Jackson Pollack, from Arthur Rimbaud to Jack Kerouac, from Charlie Parker to Janis Joplin, to Kurt Cobain, and on and on, authors and artists throughout history have binged, pill-popped, injected, or poisoned themselves for their art. Fully illustrated and addictively readable, Genius and Heroin is the indispensable reference to the untidy lives of our greatest artists and thinkers, entertainingly chronicling how the notoriously creative lived and diedwhether their ultimate downfalls were the result of opiates, alcohol, pot, absinthe, or the slow-motion suicide of obsession.

Genius and Heroin: The Illustrated Catalogue of Creativity, Obsession, and Reckless Abandon Through the Ages

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

An eyebrow-raising expose of the strange and shocking side of history's religions, cults, and spiritual movements What is the meaning of life? Since the dawn of civilization, humankind has sought to answer the mysteries of existence. Unfortunately this restless search for the divine has, all too often, driven seekers in regrettable directionstoward the comically ridiculous and irrational but also the frighteningly horrific and maniacal. Arm yourself with God's Lunatics before your next encounter with those who have been blinded by the light. Award-winning author Michael Largo, "the Capote of kaput" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), chronicles history's vast and colorful cast of true believersfrom the hidden side of the Bible's eccentric characters to today's street-corner doomsayers, and from extraterrestrial communicators, levitating hermits, and flagellating ascetics to self-serving preachers of overindulgence who believed money, sex, and drugs were the keys to the portal to divine understanding. In addition to the firewalkers, serpent handlers, cultists, terrorists, and alleged time travelers, God's Lunatics also reveals the dubious foundations of the world's major faiths and the many religious customs and laws that continue to influence governments and society, whether you are a believer or not.

God's Lunatics: Lost Souls, False Prophets, Martyred Saints, Murderous Cults, Demonic Nuns, and Other Victims of Man's Eternal Search for the Divine

The world's wildest collection of animal knowledge and lore!
Lions, and tigers, and bears . . . and dinosaurs, dragons, and monsters. Oh my!
For hundreds of years, the most popular books in the Western world next to the Bible were "bestiaries," fanciful encyclopedias collecting all of human knowledge and mythology about the animal kingdom. In these pages, eagles and elephants lived next to griffins and sea monsters. Now, in The Big, Bad Book of Beasts, award-winning author Michael Largo has updated the medieval bestsellers for the twenty-first century, illuminating little-known facts, astonishing secrets, and bizarre superstitions about the beasts that inhabit our world—and haunt our imaginations. You'll learn about the biggest bug ever, the smallest animal in the world, and the real creatures that inspired the fabled unicorns. You'll discover how birds learned to fly, why cats rub against your legs, and a thousand other facts that will make you look at nature in a wonderfully new way.
Did you know?
The fastest animal in the world is the peregrine falcon, which reaches speeds of over 200 miles per hours.
Circus ringmaster P.T. Barnum fooled many when he displayed a "mermaid" carcass that was later proved to be monkey bones sewed together with the body of a fish.
Discovered in a remote volcanic crater in New Guinea, the Bosavi wolly rat grows to the size of a cat.
President Andrew Jackson bought an African gray parrot to keep his wife company. The bird outlived them both and was removed from Jackson's funeral for cussing in both English and Spanish.
A to Z: From Aardvark to Zooplankton!
For all ages!
Includes 289 illustrations!

The Big, Bad Book of Beasts: The World's Most Curious Creatures

Humor

"A wild ride through the plant world.”--The American Gardener
An entertaining and enlightening compendium of the world's most amazing and bizarre plants, revealing their secrets, history, and lore
What happens when you give a plant a polygraph test? Can a flower really turn a human into a zombie? What gives the gingko tree its stink? The Big, Bad Book of Botany holds the incredible answers to all of these questions and more. From absinthe to zubrowka (a popular ingredient in Polish vodkas), award-winning author Michael Largo takes you through the historical and agricultural evolution of hundreds of plant species, revealing astonishing facts along the way. You'll be introduced to magic mushrooms, superfoods, and toxic teas. You'll learn about plants so valuable they have started international wars, so evolved they can trick animals into helping them survive, and so deadly a single taste of one will kill you. Featuring more than one hundred and forty illustrations, this fascinating and fun A-to-Z encyclopedia for all ages will transform the way you look at the natural world.
Did you know?
<ul><li>The word hashish comes from the Arabic hashshashin, the name for a group of Persian assassins who were given the drug to calm their nerves before each assignment.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The fossil of the oldest-known tree to have thrived on the planet was found in New York's Catskill Mountains, and dates back to more than 360 million years ago.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The avocado, though delicious to humans, is toxic to most animals.</li></ul>
<ul><li>Sunflowers grow according to a mathematical formula known as the "golden ratio," and almost always produce exactly 55 or 144 seeds.</li></ul>
Featuring more than 150 photographs and illustrations, The Big, Bad Book of Botany is a fascinating, fun A-to-Z encyclopedia for all ages that will transform the way we look at the natural world.

The Big, Bad Book of Botany: The World's Most Fascinating Flora

History

World

"Southern Comfort is realistic convincing characters, brilliant dialogue; it's set in the Florida swampland where there's endless mud, dampness; night roads, dim rooms, fishing for catfish and deepsea fishing for sailfish; alliagators and slamming screen doors. A profusion of detailed description celebrates life while, thematically. Largo explores the mystery of death as transformation." LIBRARY JOURNAL

Southern Comfort

Literature & Fiction

Tropical Pr Inc

WELCOME TO MIAMI Planes, buses, the interstates packed, boats, rafts washing up, all kinds of ways to get to this run-off of the continent, everyone looking for freedom or escape from something weaseling in their heads... 
Miami has been called Americas tropical playground, Gateway to the Americas, and heralded as a glimpse into how the nations metropolitan areas will be in the future. Its a unique city promising a dynamic blend of cultures. It is also the preferred destination of exiles and refugees seeking the American Dream. 
WELCOME TO MIAMI is a story narrated by Max, a native Floridian born in the Everglades telling of his time with one headline grabbing Cuban infiltrator, Emilio Garcia Abierto, an exile who first arrived with 125,000 other refugees during the Mariel exodus. Although WELCOME TO MIAMI could not get the Miami Tourist Boards endorsement, it is an entertaining and insightful tale of Cubans, Miami, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the sun.

Welcome to Miami

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