cover image Truth or Tabloid?

Truth or Tabloid?

Peter Fenton. Three Rivers Press (CA), $12.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-609-80971-6

People keen on skimming tabloids in the supermarket checkout aisle will relish Fenton's paean to wacky headlines. The author, who worked as a National Enquirer reporter for 15 years, organizes his second book (after I Forgot to Wear Underwear on a Glass-Bottom Boat, which he co-authored) into a series of quizzes: the trick is to determine which headlines express truth, and which are fabrications of fictional tabloid scribe Nigel Puddingporne. Naturally, the headlines herein are so bizarre it's nearly impossible to guess which ones might actually be true.""Blind Man Hikes Appalachian Trail, Falls 5,000 Times""? Truth.""Irate Dad Chains Belly-Dancing Son To Bed""? Also factual. But""Obsessive/Compulsive Athlete Enters Special Olympics"" is made up, as is""Watching TV Movies Can Ruin Your Life."" Fenton provides brief, cheeky explanations for each entry (the headline""Stephen Hawking: We Will All Die By Boiling,"" for instance, qualifies as true because Hawking was quoted as fearing that our atmosphere""might get hotter and hotter until it will be like Venus"";""Avoid Venus during summer boiling season,"" Fenton advises) but in the end, there's no rhyme or reason to figuring out which headlines are honest and which are bogus.