5 People Who Died During Sex: And 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists

All in perfectly bad taste

Prepare to be amazed, appalled, disgusted, and hugely entertained by this compendium of indelicate oddities. Nothing is too inane, too insane, too bizarre, or too distasteful for this incredible, seemingly impossible, but absolutely true collection of facts from across the ages and around the world.

Did you know…

…that Pope Benedict XII was such a hardened boozer that he inspired the expression “drunk as a pope”? (From “10 Historic Drunks”)

…that as a special honeymoon treat, Prince Charles read Princess Diana passages from the works of Carl Jung and Laurens van der Post? (From “Historys 10 Least Romantic Honeymoons”)

…that the best-dressed gentlemen in medieval England exposed their genitals below a short-fitting tunic? (From “Historys 10 Greatest Fashion Mistakes”)

…that Alfred Hitchcock suffered from ovophobia—fear of eggs? (From “10 Phobias of the Famous”)

…that King Louis XIV only took three baths in his lifetime, each of them under protest?

(From “10 Great Unwashed”)

…that in 1930, Sears customers became enraged when the catalog was first printed on glossy, non-absorbent paper?

(From “12 Magical Moments in Toilet Paper History”)

Prepare to be amazed, appalled, disgusted, and hugely entertained by this compendium of indelicate oddities. Nothing is too inane, insane, bizarre, or distasteful for this incredible--but absolutely true--collection of facts from across the ages and around the world.

5 People Who Died During Sex is a treasure trove of history’s most repellent, idiotic, and outrageous customs and behaviors, presented in scores of terrifically entertaining lists. 5 People Who Died During Sex is perfect for warding off awkward silences at parties, and absolutely excels at tickling the funny bone and stimulating the brain. Chapters cover everything from food and drink to crime and punishment, and feature lists like the ten uses for a dead person, ten bizarre aphrodisiacs, the ten least romantic honeymoons, and many more.

Here are just a few examples of the sort of gluttony, vanity, and stupidity gleefully celebrated in the book.

• Queen Isabel II of Spain got blind drunk to prepare herself for the unpleasant prospect of an arranged marriage to the Duke of Cadiz, who was not only her first cousin, and short—he was also gay. When it was time to recite their vows, both the queen and the duke burst into tears.

• Elvis Presley tried injecting himself with the urine of pregnant women as part of a fad diet.

• Eighteenth-century men and women seeking that fashionably surprised look got it by using false eyebrows–made of mouse skin.

With 101 lists of outrageous facts, Shaw's marvel of miscellany runs the gamut of human experience.

KARL SHAW is the author of Royal Babylon. He lives in Staffordshire, England.