On a recent sojourn to one of my favorite places,
Barnes and Noble, I found the most unusual book. While searching for anything I
could find on Joan of Arc, the history of France and the Hundred Years War, I
stumbled upon Bad Days in History: A Gleefully Grim
Chronicle of Misfortune, Mayhem, and Misery for Every Day of the Year by
Michael Farquhar. The cover depicted a cartoon drawing of a wooden Trojan Horse
and an ancient Greek soldier tentatively holding an apple up to its mouth. It
made me smile, so I added it to my other finds and headed to the on-site
Starbucks. With a cappuccino in one hand and a stack of paperbacks and
hardcovers cradled in my other arm, I commandeered a table to peruse my
treasures.
In the Bad Days in History, the author chronicles
the epic misfortunes and terrible bad luck of some of the most absurd and often
little-known occurrences of our time with a touch of light-hearted humor. Plucked
from the ancient days of yore to the 2000s, this tome consists of 365
uproarious blunders and catastrophes from around the world.
