Within these pages you'll find the strangest deaths from around the world and discover the bizarre and astounding ways in which some people have met their maker. Freakish fatalities, idiotic accidents and ingenious suicides - if there's a weird way of dying, it's here!

A welcome dose of dark humor for these dark times, from acclaimed illustrator Cecilia Ruiz The Book of Extraordinary Deaths introduces readers to the bizarre demises of thinkers, writers, monarchs, artists, and notable nobodies throughout history. Beginning in the seventh century BC with the unusual death of Draco and journeying chronologically to the present day, Ruiz’s playfully sinister giftbook illustrates and describes the infamous deaths of these unfortunate souls. From stories of the hot-air balloon duel that claimed a Frenchman’s life to the fatal wardrobe malfunction of famed dancer Isadora Duncan, The Book of Extraordinary Deaths is a uniquely clever and gorgeously rendered meditation on life’s ironies and mysteries. With Ruiz’s witty descriptions and rich, captivating illustrations, her characters come to life on the page even as they shuffle off this mortal coil.

Fans of Abir Mukherjee and Sarah Waters will love this gloriously macabre romp racing through the glitzy Versailles Palace by way of the shady criminal underworld of Paris on the brink of the revolution Everyone has secrets. Especially the king. When a gruesomely mutilated body is found on the squalid streets of Paris in 1759, the Inspector of Strange and Unexplained Deaths is called to the scene. The body count soon begins to rise and the Inspector is brought even further into a web of deceit that stretches from criminals, secret orders, revolutionaries and aristocrats to very top of society. In the murky world of the court of King Louis XV, finding out the truth will prove to be anything but straightforward.

The Strange Death of Europe is the internationally bestselling account of a continent and a culture caught in the act of suicide, now updated with new material taking in developments since it was first published to huge acclaim. These include rapid changes in the dynamics of global politics, world leadership and terror attacks across Europe. Douglas Murray travels across Europe to examine first-hand how mass immigration, cultivated self-distrust and delusion have contributed to a continent in the grips of its own demise. From the shores of Lampedusa to migrant camps in Greece, from Cologne to London, he looks critically at the factors that have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their alteration as a society. Murray's "tremendous and shattering" book (The Times) addresses the disappointing failures of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation and the Western fixation on guilt, uncovering the malaise at the very heart of the European culture. His conclusion is bleak, but the predictions not irrevocable. As Murray argues, this may be our last chance to change the outcome, before it's too late.

Tales of weird deaths that will make you shake your head and reconsider the next “I dare you.” Death comes in many forms—sometimes peaceful, sometimes tragic, sometimes dramatic . . . and at other times just plain weird. In History’s Weirdest Deaths, you’ll read the true stories of more than a hundred people who met their end in a bizarre fashion. Each cautionary tale is unique. Meet the victims of stunts that went horribly wrong, ordinary people who made boneheaded blunders, and famous figures who realized too late that celebrity isn’t a cure for stupidity.

On a humid July day in 1993, White House deputy counsel Vincent W. Foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park in suburban Virginia. One of the nation's highest-ranking federal officers, Foster was a boyhood friend of President Bill Clinton and a close confidant of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. His death sent shock waves through the White House and the nation's capital. The death was quickly pronounced a suicide. According to the official story that soon emerged, Foster was depressed, angry, and isolated. With nowhere else to turn, he went to a secluded park near the Potomac River, put a gun in his mouth, and killed himself. But is that what really happened? In this compelling and fully documented report, investigative journalist Christopher Ruddy answers that critical question. Ruddy, who has covered the case almost from the start, details the disturbing inconsistencies surrounding Foster's alleged suicide, chronicles the botched investigations, documents the frenzied illegal activity in the White House in the hours after Foster's death, and notes the persistent failure of mainstream media to ask the right questions. Throughout his thorough investigation of the available forensic and circumstantial evidence, Ruddy weaves a disturbing tale of cover-ups, abuse of power, police and prosecutorial incompetence, and press indifference. His startling conclusion -- that despite the official line, Foster could not have killed himself in Fort Marcy Park -- will persuade even the most skeptical reader to demand a full public investigation into the mysterious circumstances of the death of Vincent Foster and the troubling events in its aftermath.

The chilling tome that launched an entire genre of books about the often gruesome but always tragic ways people have died in our national parks, this updated edition of the classic includes calamities in Yellowstone from the past sixteen years, including the infamous grizzly bear attacks in the summer of 2011 as well as a fatal hot springs accident in 2000. In these accounts, written with sensitivity as cautionary tales about what to do and what not to do in one of our wildest national parks, Whittlesey recounts deaths ranging from tragedy to folly—from being caught in a freak avalanche to the goring of a photographer who just got a little too close to a bison. Armchair travelers and park visitors alike will be fascinated by this important book detailing the dangers awaiting in our first national park.

Over the ages, death has come in some very unpredictable forms. This irreverent little book gathers together some of the most peculiar and outrageous ways that people across the globe have met their untimely ends. Whether shocking or silly, these true stories are proof at least that the grim reaper has a strange sense of humour.