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Book Review, © Copyright 2003, Jim Loy
Urban Legends are "true" (people swear they are true) stories that happened to a friend of a friend, or was read in a newspaper but we can't find the paper. Or they are local stories which seem to be local everywhere. Further research fails to turn up a source, and it becomes evident that they are not true, or are wild exaggerations. An example is the story of some people who picked up a hitchhiker, only to find out later that the hitchhiker is a person who has been dead for many years. All such books are automatically very entertaining.
Also a few of the Darwin Award winners (about people who have died, or forfeited their chances of reproducing, in really stupid ways) have been shown to be urban legends. Also see books on hoaxes (two are listed below).
I have read very few of the following books. So there may be a lemon among them. To order any of these books from Amazon.com, click its name in the list, below: