It takes a certain mischievous charm (and perhaps a slightly warped sense of curiosity) to write a book called ‘5 People Who Died During Sex‘. Luckily for us, Karl Shaw has both in abundance. This isn’t some dusty encyclopaedia of historical oddities; it’s a lively, unapologetically tasteless romp through the strangest, darkest corners of human history, conveniently arranged into 100 sharply titled lists…
True to its name, the centrepiece is a list of five unfortunate souls whose final moments came at the most intimate (and inconvenient) of times. But Shaw doesn’t stop there. The book ricochets gleefully through “the weirdest, the worst, the most famous and infamous,” digging up the kinds of stories most historians politely sweep under the rug: scandalous demises, ill‑timed last words, absurd superstitions, and other glorious lowlights from the past.
Shaw’s style is breezy, sardonic and perfectly suited to this catalogue of human folly. Each list is short and punchy, ideal for dipping into when you’ve only got a few spare minutes, or when you feel the irresistible urge to share a grim little fact with friends over drinks. What keeps it from feeling mean‑spirited is the underlying sense of bemusement: the book doesn’t laugh at tragedy so much as marvel at how strange people can be when history catches them off guard.
And that’s the real pleasure here. Behind every morbid headline or ill‑fated incident, there’s a very human story – of ambition, desire, or just astonishingly bad luck. Shaw doesn’t pretend these lists are scholarly, and that’s the point: it’s a salute to the bizarre footnotes of history, the moments that rarely make it into serious textbooks but linger in the imagination precisely because they’re so ridiculous.
At just over 200 pages, it’s the perfect guilty‑pleasure read: brisk, black‑humoured and oddly enlightening. You’ll come away with a handful of dinner‑party anecdotes, a slightly darker sense of humour and a renewed appreciation that sometimes history really is stranger (and far funnier) than fiction…
In short: irreverent, shameless and utterly entertaining. The kind of book you might hesitate to display on your shelf, yet inevitably end up recommending to everyone you know…
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.
