Death is the one thing about life that we can all be sure of. But exactly how we shuffle off this mortal coil is another story altogether. The boring among us may well gently drift off in our sleep, gratefully avoiding the fate of those whose inner flame is extinguished by disease or disaster.

If we’re lucky, the manner of our passing will warrant no more than a tick in some box somewhere, a ‘plus one’ to some statistician’s calculation. Yet some individuals’ deaths will occur in such a way that they are remembered long past the achievements made in their lives. From almost three millennia ago—when the politician Draco was suffocated by the gifts with which an appreciative audience showered him—to the present day, the fates have oh-so-generously woven their magic to ensure that certain members of the human race have met the choir invisible in ever more interesting circumstances.

This book examines a fair number of such cases, where the unexpected is the norm and the bizarre commonplace. From the humorous to the tragic and the gruesome, prepare yourself for a morbid trip through the kind of material coroners secretly share at their Christmas parties.

Welcome to 101 Amazing Unusual Deaths.