Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating and fun!
Review: A great read- debunks so many of the myths I've heard and SWORE were true
Rating:
Summary: A book to set the record straight!
Review: A wonderful collection of urban legends for anyone who has been told by their co-worker's best friend's ex-boyfriend's aunt of a story that's just too weird to be true.
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Summary: Sorry to burst the bubble, but it's not that great.
Review: Allow me turn the fan on the raving customer comments that preceded mine. This book is simply not that great, nor is it as interesting as you think it will be. I too bought it on the promising sound of its title, and I was majority of the stories are ones you've never heard of. References to the most commonly heard ones are mentioned in favorable reviews of this book (including the one provided above) but it is not representative. Most of time, you will be reading random stories you NEVER heard of.2. The stories you will recognize are most likely not stories you've heard and assumed were true. Instead, you will have seen them in email forwards you've received telling you a story that was suspicious to begin with because no names are mentioned. This book could be called the "colossal" book of false email forward stories, rather than of oral stories you've heard, assumed were true, and maybe passed along. 3. The book ignores simple urban MYTHS, such as there being alligators in the sewers of New York City, that are concise and pack more punch per line (especially if you thought they might have been true). Instead, it simply recounts strict urban LEGENDS--false, lenghty stories that happened to a "friend of a friend." The stories are a drone to get through. More annoyingly, they are all told in the first person, in the same cliched [much later] She/he was horrified to discover.. [insert stupid catchline here--eg. "the man was actually her husband!"]" Given the length of the book, thanks to its (overly) successful attempt to be comprehensive, this will quickly get boring. In short, I virtually GUARANTEE you won't get through this big, fat, tiresome book. Or you'll do it just to get through, and it won't be rewarding. I hope I saved you some money. Cheers
Rating: 
Summary: Good reference book for urban legend lovers
Review: Anyone who loves to read about and hear urban legends is bound to be familiar with Bruvand's work. His other (shorter) books on the subject are well worth reading, but are also written in a more academic style that concentrates on the folk structures and motifs in these stories. This book is more of an indulgence; Bruvand picks many of the versions that he publishes for the humor instead of because they are indicative of common tellings and retellings. So, in this book there are versions told by himself and by his students, and even stories as told by talk show hosts. If you are more interested into speculation about the themes and their importance to the audience of urban folklore...
Rating:
Summary: Good reference book for urban legend lovers
Review: Anyone who loves to read about and hear urban legends is bound to be familiar with Bruvand's work. His other (shorter) books on the subject are well worth reading, but are also written in a more academic style that concentrates on the folk structures and motifs in these stories. This book is more of an indulgence; Bruvand picks many of the versions that he publishes for the humor instead of because they are indicative of common tellings and retellings. So, in this book there are versions told by himself and by his students, and even stories as told by talk show hosts. If you are more interested into speculation about the themes and their importance to the audience of urban folklore...
Rating: 
Summary: Portable Snopes rehashes same old stories.
Review: Brunvand has been profiting from everyone's love of urban legends for far too long. His books are a waste of trees since he insists on reprinting the same tired stories over and over. This volume is no exception; its only virtue is that it can be read in the bathroom or while lying in bed.
Yaawn. I recommend www.snopes.com, the Urban Legends Reference Page, for far more entertainment in the form of fresh, tasty urban legends and no dead trees. Visiting the Snopes site is not without risks -- the endless theorizing about the role urban legends play in controlling social behavior is quite boring, and Barbara Mikkelson's (Mrs. Snopes) passion for cutsey "internyms"[i.e., Joe "I Wrote It" Smith] is seriously annoying. Be warned, though -- take the "disturbing image" labels seriously, or you may see some pictures that will stick in your mind far longer than you'd like.
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Summary: Buy All Of Jan's Books -- And Check out TURN ME ON DEAD MAN
Review: Dr. Brunvand mentions the "Paul-is-Dead" rumor in his books. This is the singular event that found Beatle Paul McCartney dead. There is a great new book that covers this saga in great detail. TURN ME ON, DEAD MAN: The Beatles and the "Paul-Is-Dead" Hoax by Andru Reeve is now available on Amazon.com But be sure you have enough money left over to buy Dr. Brunvand's excellent Encyclopedia of Urban Legends!!!
Rating: 
Summary: a friend of a friend recommended it
Review: For those of you who may not be familiar with the term, an Urban Legend is one of those stories that someone tells you--typically they claim that it happened to a friend of a friend (FOAF)--which just seems, in the words of this title, "too good to be true." But when the person tells the story they do so with great authority and include some little hyperspecific detail that tends to allay some of your skepticism. Or at least it does until someone else tells you a slightly different version of the same story two days later. Personally, I've heard dozens of these stories over the years, many from my Mom or my friend Charlie, and I've developed a particular awareness for when folks are peddling these myths, becoming a kind of amateur clearing house. Here are a few I've had folks tell me personally : The Blow Dry Rabbit; The Vibrating Cactus; the Confused Driver; Batman in the Closet; The Disgruntled Bridegroom; any others, anybody? I don't know that he coined the term Urban Legend, but Jan Harold Brunvand, a professor at the University of Utah, certainly popularized it with his newspaper column and a series of books in which he collects them and tries to trace their convoluted paths through the popular culture (It's amazing how often Ann Landers has a hand in promulgating them). I've been a fan of Brunvand's work for years, even submitting some of my favorites to him, including one which he reprinted in The Baby Train. His writing tends to be a little prosaic and, in letting his correspondents speak for themselves, he often presents the legends in less amusing form than he might. But in all honesty,the real pleasure in his books lies not in the stories themselves, but in the joy of recognition, the thrill of the "Gotcha!," when you finally have proof that a story is bunk. This debunking process has been made much easier by the advent of the Internet; all you usually have to do is include a couple keywords from a given story and the term "urban legend" in a search line and you'll get numerous hits from websites that specialize in collecting and trying to stay current with them. It's a good thing too, because this latest effort from Brunvand suffers from a major and inexplicable weakness : it has no index. This curious omission is especially unforgivable in a reference book and is almost serious enough for me not to recommend the book. As is, we'll give it a very qualified nod, but suggest you seek out the earlier books instead. GRADE : C
Rating:
Summary: Colossal Book of Urban Legends
Review: For those who don't know, Jan Harold Brunvand has a column out in Salt Lake City, but has acquired a following all across the country, or rather the world. He is the leading scholar on the subject of urban legends, those sometimes funny and often terrifying stories you first heard on the playground or by the watercooler, which are always supposed to be true but can't be proved because they happened to a friend of a friend of a friend . . . This book, the "Colossal Book of Urban Legends" is really an updated combination of most of Brunvand's previous books, such as "The Vanishing Hitchhiker", "The Choking Doberman" and "The Baby Train". In other words, if you are going to buy this book, I doubt think you'll want to buy all the previous ones, though there might be a few stories in those not included here.
Rating:
Summary: Colossal Book of Urban Legends
Review: For those who don't know, Jan Harold Brunvand has a column out in Salt Lake City, but has acquired a following all across the country, or rather the world. He is the leading scholar on the subject of urban legends, those sometimes funny and often terrifying stories you first heard on the playground or by the watercooler, which are always supposed to be true but can't be proved because they happened to a friend of a friend of a friend . . . This book, the "Colossal Book of Urban Legends" is really an updated combination of most of Brunvand's previous books, such as "The Vanishing Hitchhiker", "The Choking Doberman" and "The Baby Train". In other words, if you are going to buy this book, I doubt think you'll want to buy all the previous ones, though there might be a few stories in those not included here.
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