Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Now available in paperback, this book has been updated to include more humorous, entertaining myths that keep the rumor mills churning. Richard Roeper, the current co-host of Ebert & Roeper and the Movies, knows a lot about urban legends-tales so deliciously tasty that you desperately want it to be true.

Find out:

Does the "bonsai kitten" Web site celebrate cruelty to animals -- or is it just a tasteless joke?

What's the real story behind the so-called Ivy League porn film supposedly in production at Yale?

Could it really be true that a man named George Turklebaum dropped dead at his desk-and none of his co-workers noticed for five days?

Each of these stories and hundreds more like them have been told and retold, embellished and reworked. They're fun to hear or read, and even more fun to retell. They're part of our contemporary folklore.

It is hard to review a book like this...or is it easy? The book is a collection of modern urban legends and the truth (or untruth) behind them. I guess you could criticize his selection of legends to cover, but that is more a personal choice. The truth is, Roeper does a solid job of reviewing the legend in question and then delving into the story behind it.
It succeeds exactly where it intends to succeed. It is a light-hearted, entertaining book. This is a book you can read 10 minutes at a time and always come away entertained.

Average Rating:

Rating: - a good, light read
It is hard to review a book like this...or is it easy? The book is a collection of modern urban legends and the truth (or untruth) behind them. I guess you could criticize his selection of legends to cover, but that is more a personal choice. The truth is, Roeper does a solid job of reviewing the legend in question and then delving into the story behind it.
It succeeds exactly where it intends to succeed. It is a light-hearted, entertaining book. This is a book you can read 10 minutes at a time and always come away entertained.

Rating: - Perfect for teens
"Urban Legends" by Richard Roeper is a light read perfect for a teen audience. This book touches on most of the common urban legends, the welcome to the world of AIDS urban legend, whether Tupac is really dead, Tommy Hilfiger on Oprah and other urban legends that have been rehashed over time. The book dispells what is truth and what is fiction. Overall though this book doesn't really tell readers what can't be found on the Internet or in other books. It's an entertaining book.

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Rating: - History Is Myth....Or....?
In this book there are many of those Urban Legends that we've heard of that have been circulating since we can remember. And, there are also many tales that we haven't heard of. Today we get most of these myths via email, but before email came to be, I remember hearing...."this happened....I heard that....so-and-so said....did you know that....?" And beyond the humor, are the effects these tall-tales can have on the people and places they're about. Many of these "alleged" rumors were followed up in the form of questions from journalists during media interviews. Often, the media will investigate a rumor (urban myth) to see if there is any merit to it. Once debunked as false however, the rumor lives on in peoples' minds.

HIV positive Hyperdermic needles left in the coin returns of pay phones. Those unfortunate people who went out on the town to wake up in hotel bathtub filled with ice, and a note left to call the Doctor because their Kidney had been removed. And what's to that gerbil rumor involving a celebrity we all know? Well, that's false too. That particular myth has been tagged on other celebrities going back to the 70s.

Who started these tales? When? How did they get spread?
In addition to listing and describing these interesting myths, Roeper notes of the origins, means and methods of their growth, and the current believability status of many of them. Good coffee table book. It'll occupy some of the folks you'll bring over.

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Rating: - Pretty good book, a fun and easy read!
This book takes a lot of urban legends, some I had heard, some I had not, and proves them wrong. The author sites his research, so you know that it was actually investigated.
This book sort of takes the fun out of some urban legends, but a lot of them, that you just knew couldn't be true, are proved to be false. So from now on, when my friends send me all these crazy emails, I can tell them they are a hoax and actually have a source.

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Rating: - Too many entertainment-world rumors
"Urban Legends" is entertaining but ultimately tedious, with far too much focus on celebrity gossip and rumors. For example, three pages are devoted to the fascinating question of who the "You" is in Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know." The author offers his own speculation, and we are treated to ruminations by fans and Internet posters, but we are left in the dark as to why this merits a place in a book on urban legends. Maybe there are urban legends that explain why popular musicians like Phil Collins and the members of Pink Floyd are regarded as geniuses in the journalistic world, on the Internet, and wherever else high school lives forever. Two and a half stars for an excellent selection of Internet, campus, and computer-tech legends, not to mention a badly-needed expose of the deathless "Bozo No-No" legend. (I was told this had happened on local television in Toledo, Ohio. Not.) Minus the same amount for the remaining fluff.

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