Comments and reviews on

Live a Little, Laugh a Lot

A Laugh a Day Won't Keep This Nurse Practitioner Away

Live a Little, Laugh a Lot. Barb Bancroft, NP. 2003. $25, 400 pages,

Reviewed by Priscilla P. Merrill, NP, at Dover Internal Medicine and at the occupational health company Healthy Achievers in Northwood, N.H.

Live a Little, Laugh a Lot is a handy gem for busy NPs. In fact, it's just what the nurse practitioner ordered. I was thrilled to find a humorous NP text since I deeply believe that we need to laugh to stay sane in our line of work. As the author (a pediatric nurse practitioner and national speaker) points out, belly laughing burns as many calories per minute as rowing strenuously!

I highly recommend this unique compendium of fun facts. Consider it light, intriguing food for thought and soul.

The book is easy to pick up and put down in a hurry, providing a tidbit of wisdom at each glance. It is full of trivia, "mnemonics for mnemcompoops," and facts you never thought you'd want to know, such as how many bugs we unwittingly eat in our lifetime

I was engaged at the start, eager to turn the page for another guffaw. Some of the blurbs will surely score you popularity points at dinner parties where fellow medics are in attendance!

I learned that licking wounds is dangerous and not recommended. How many children do we see do this? Now we can tell them why they shouldn't. I learned that plastic diapers on little boys can affect fertility by warming the testes and impacting sperm count. And am I alone in being surprised that the testicles o a blue whale are about 2.5 feet long and weigh about 110 pounds each? As you can see, I really had a ball with this book.

Amid the funnies are some interesting historical facts and fascinating medical explanations. An example is why you should always whisper into the left ear if you want someone to remember your sweet nothing. I don't have space to tell you why, so you'll have to buy the book to find out.

After a particularly vicious gray-hair day, I happened to read one particularly helpful snippet. It instructs you to purchase a Johnson & Johnson rectal thermometer, open the package, and read the insert, which states, "Every rectal thermometer made by Johnson & Johnson is person-ally tested." Then, you close your eyes and repeat, "I am so glad I don't work in quality control at J&J." Someone truly has a job worse than yours!

The author has a great sense of humor that keeps the reader captivated. I couldn't agree more with the last sentence of the book: "You don't stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop laughing." Preserve your sanity, and read this book.

“A husband and wife in Beijing exchanged organs in a 19-hour operation... Husband Wang received wife’s Hou's female parts, and wife Hou received Wang's male organs in a true scenario of Hou Wanged Who?”

Funny? Yes — and best of all, it's true. Award-winning speaker Barb Bancroft, RN, MSN, PNP, has collected the odd, the bizarre and the downright hysterical (which comes from the Greek word for uterus, by the way) in this wild and wacky volume of medical trivia. And you will laugh until you cry reading this book.

Did you know that vibrators were among the first home appliances that used electricity? Apparently the Victorians weren’t quite as boring in the bedroom as we’ve been lead to believe. But everyone should be especially careful around the bedroom: a 412-pound woman once fell out of bed, hit her head, knocked herself unconscious, and suffocated when her enormous breasts fell across her nose and mouth. Another deadly bedroom fact: a middle-aged man is more likely to die of a heart attack while in the arms of younger lover — particularly one who happens not to be his wife or regular companion. (Wives: you’ll want to be sure to mention this fact frequently to your spouse.)

Afraid of public restrooms? Well, maybe you should be more afraid of where you work, as a typical office desk has 21,000 bacteria per square inch, versus a toilet seat with 400. And the average dishrag has a million more times bacteria than a toilet seat... Live a little, Laugh a Lot makes an excellent book for trivia buffs and for speakers who could use a few off-the-wall anecdotes to liven up a presentation. As Barb Bancroft so deftly demonstrates, “Truth is always stranger than fiction.”— C.APPEL • Fearless Reviews.com

I'm a sucker for fact books. It probably grew out of the years at the breakfast table trying to avoid getting punched by my older brother Bob or sassed by my younger sister Patricia. I found that they'd leave me alone if I sat at the far corner and concentrated on my Wheaties, "Little Orphan Annie," "The Katzenjammer Kids," "Our Boarding House (With Major Hoople)," the "Toonerville Trolley," "Smokey Stover," "Hambone's Meditations" and—most of all—Ripley's "Believe It or Not."

Problem with the latter was the very brevity of it. A Hindu fakir staring at the sun until his eyes cooked out. A house built of beer cans. A cow with three heads in Texas. A Venezuelan fisherman who hauled in a ninety foot man-'o-war. A dog who nursed a litter of cats. Just the facts. I wanted detail.

I shudda waited around for Ms. Bancroft and her chunky little book of 350 or so pages. Under the heading, "So you think you're sleeping alone?" she tells us things that we might not want to know: that dust mite droppings in 44,000,000 homes are "enough to trigger allergies." Mosquitoes? They sense that lactic acid exuding from your skin and the carbon dioxide you are exhaling; they also like "the breath of ox—grass fermenting in the stomach." So now there is a machine you can turn on that "has an audible heartbeat, gives off a small amount of heat and ... emits an odor just like ox breath" so they'll stick it to the zapper instead of you. (Mosquitoes also prefer birds over humans, so those mites we brought over in our ships and airplanes have handily destroyed most of the indigenous species of Hawaii.)

Spermicides? Harvard Medical School tested five different soft drinks, found that "Coke Classic" was the winner by a landslide. It killed sperm five times faster than New Coke,  although the Coca Cola corporate offices refuse to endorse their product as a spermicidal agent...

Kitty litter in the sewers is now infecting sea otters. Toothbrushes can carry strep infections. Toilet seats are generally cleaner than the cutting boards that you use in the kitchen. Men produce sperm until they die, but those of a 20-year-old "can swim up the 5-inch Fallopian tube in fifty minutes," whereas the sperm of a 70-year-old geezer like me "takes 2-1/2 days." Pant-pant.

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the 65-plus age group "have increased by more than 300 percent according to a report by British researchers in The Medical Post." And for those thinking of going on a diet: "A 412-pound woman fell head first out of bed, knocked herself unconscious, and was suffocated by her own bosom."

"Her enormous breasts had fallen down over her face in such a way that she couldn't get air through her nose or mouth," a police officer said.—L. W. Milam

What a delight! Took it with me on a flight and started reading it. Was laughing like crazy. You are just the best and I LOVE the book. Have read it all!!!!

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I want to read "just a little bit" before I go to sleep and the next thing I know it is 2:00 AM. Great book. Thanks so much.

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The book is great!  I like the content and the layout. You are certainly a talented individual. Not only do you have a lot of info in that brain of yours but you also have the ability to share it in a most interesting and witty way. 

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Love, absolutely love the book!!!!!!!!!!!! Here we are again, reading, laughing, reading, laughing... laughing at that!!! 

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Love your talks and your books. You make learning fun…and funny. Thank you for the enjoyable pages. They are filled with beautiful graphics, love and information.

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I chose to bring it (Live a Little, Laugh a Lot) with me to read while at the doctor's office.  I felt like a fool breaking out in laughter, even putting the book down, I was grinning like a fool. I am enjoying it immensely but it should come with a warning!!