THE GRIM REAPER’S BOOK OF DAYS: A...

THE GRIM REAPER’S BOOK OF DAYS: A Cautionary Record of Famous, Infamous and Unconventional Exits by Ed Morrow (Citadel Press: $9.95; 315 pp . , paperback original). As the title suggests, this cheerfully macabre almanac lists the exotic ways in which people died on each day of the year. On Jan. 10, 1951, a carpenter in Dusseldorf was killed when a 6-foot icicle impaled him; on Dec. 27, 1969, an Austrian circus dwarf died when he fell off a trampoline into the mouth of a nearby hippopotamus. The reader who consults this volume each morning will have a reply ready for anyone who wishes him a nice day.