Thomas CathcartHeidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between

The book arrived earlier than expected in excellent condition

of the three books that i've read, so far, by these two guys, this is my favorite. all their books are worth reading, and rereading, and rereading. never has philosophy been this much fun!!!

Nearly identical in format to it's companion Plato And A Platypus Walk Into Bar, a wonderful balance of philosophy jokes and a little pedantry. This time there is more of a focus on religion, life, death and the afterlife- potentially daunting and depressing subjects made palatable with great deal of wit and humor. Much smarter and more educational than it needs to be. Another instant favourite. Most highly recommended.

Cutesy clever jokes organized into philosophical categories. I was hoping to pick up a few jokes to help me illustrate complex Philo concepts. No such luck with this series of books. They were too corny and too highly steeped in specific context to lend a hand at illustrating difficult concepts. Disappointing, but perhaps my expectations were too high. Glad I got a cheap, used copy.On the other hand, this book was entertaining. I felt a sweet trickle of delight running through the twists and turns of topic. I liked it, even if I didn't get practical tools to use in open conversation.Since there are not many comedians focusing on ancient philosophy for source material, I made do with this read and it's novelties. The main reason I subtracted one star was for depth. Otherwise a light, fun read.

I enjoyed the first book, but nearly every joke in this one is ‘wife-bad’ boomer humor. And I understand both authors were over 70 when writing this, so the jokes reflect that, but genuinely 90% of the jokes rely on marital mishaps painting the husband as a bumbling fool and the wife as heartless.It takes away from the rest of the content.

I found this to be an absolutely delightful book. This is not heavy reading, but it does indeed take you through a light hearted journey in the issues and thoughts and practices surrounding death. Some of the jokes may seem to be in poor taste by some, but what the hell? Death, being such an eternal, definite phenomena, I am sure that Death can take a bit of a joke about - ? - himself? Itself? None of us really know what will become of us after death, and there is such a lot of heavy literature, and heavy ceremony surrounding death, that it is high time that some one came out with something as light as this book.Well done guys. Keep 'em coming.

I'm afraid this book was a bit over my intellectual head. I found (and continue to find) their previous tome a fascinating read about schools of philosophy and the accompanying illustrative jokes -- I am now revisiting that book (Plato and a Platypus...) for the third time. I guess I was expecting the same with this book but it lacked the jokes and the subject matter for some reason was not so stimulating.

This being the third book by Cathcart and Klein (I also recommend their previous two:  Plato and a Platypus / Aristotle and an Aardvark Boxed Set (Box Set) ), it is focused on the issue of death, suicide, heaven, hell and all that. It's full of memorable jokes and quotes such as, "Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." Don't be fooled by some of the other reviewers, this book is very funny; it's full of hilarious jokes, which do indeed help elucidate some of the major themes in philosophical literature. It also includes some humorous cartoons. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

An excellent read

This is such a low level attempt at the subject. The philosophy is shallow and the jokes are of the type seen on television, i.e. based on sarcasm and sexual activity. Their book on Plato was much better.

Not as much fun as Plato (& the Platypus, of course).

Weird book.

I just love Daniel Klein's dry sense of humour. I have bought four of his books.