If at All Possible, Involve a Cow: The Book of College Pranks

This book is worth the price it's currently selling for. The writing is great - engaging, funny, and with just the right amount of analysis of the pranks. Just reading about the crazy things that have gone on at colleges around the country is hilarious. It makes me wish I'd been a bit more lively when I was in college. If you have fond memories of college, like pranks, or just like cows, I highly recommend this book. Edit: I see that the price has now dropped to much more reasonable levels. Now there's no reason not to check this one out...

This hilariously entertaining and meticulously researched book is a "must read" for the college-bound. In fact, I would recommend reading it even before deciding where to apply. It surely gives a better sense of the atmospheres at many colleges than any admissions package ever could. It is a sad, sad shame that this book is out of print -- it is truly a classic. Steinberg is a devilishly clever and insightful author. In addition to chronicling the outrageous exploits of the students at our institutions of higher learning, he thoughfully includes guidelines for executing pranks of your own. Get your hands on a copy of this book now!!

Steinberg illuminates the halls of academia where the true creativity is, well, really WAS taking place. It is both a view of a time long forgotten-where students were trusted to push boundaries-and a lament for that loss of exuberance. Universities have become too serious, too cautious, when compared to the antics this book aptly depicts. One truly wishes to be a member of the Harvard Lampoon pranksters, the UCLA students crazily running through USC with blue paint for Tommy Trojan, or the MIT students scaling thier dome. This book celebrates the creative energy that is possible in a college setting, not the bookish individualism that is the predominate image found elsewhere-and is too alive and well.

No matter what anybody does, anywhere, there's an anthropologist or journalist watching... Fortunately, in this case, the result is a book that is not so scholarly it's dull, nor so fluffy 101-psychobabble it's dull. It goes through the early days of colleges and relates student pranks and misdemeanors of those days, and then takes us to the present, with a large assortment of the high-tech/low cunning pranks pulled at M.I.T. and Cal Tech. For those who sigh for the good old days when young people were decent and respectable, the history part might be disillusioning. For students, the entire book will be inspiring (one hopes) though it is not a how-to. For administration and professors, it might cause mild insomnia. (Don't worry, though, read a few student papers, the insomnia will pass.) For anyone looking for an interesting, funny book that might be shelved under Applied Humor, check this one out.