• Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates

  • Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
  • By: Thomas Cathcart
  • Narrated by: Thomas Cathcart
  • Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (41 ratings)

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Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates  By  cover art

Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates

By: Thomas Cathcart
Narrated by: Thomas Cathcart
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Publisher's summary

The new book by the best-selling authors of Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar is a hilarious take on the philosophy, theology, and psychology of mortality and immortality. That is, Death. The authors pry open the coffin lid on this one, looking at the Big D and also its prequel, Life, and its sequel, the Hereafter.

Philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre have been wrestling with the meaning of death for as long as they have been wrestling with the meaning of life. Fortunately, humorists have been keeping pace with the major thinkers by creating gags about dying. Death's funny that way - it gets everybody's attention. Death has gotten a bad rap. It's time to take a closer look at what the Deep Thinkers have to say on the subject, and there are no better guides than Cathcart and Klein.

©2009 Thomas Cathcart (P)2009 Penguin

Critic reviews

"This little book is an entertaining and surprisingly informative survey of the Big D and its centrality in human life." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great humor for a hard topic

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Love the way these guys take a potentially difficult topic and bring humor to it in a way that's very informative. Good discussion and information from a variety of different perspectives. Would definitely recommend.

What did you like best about this story?

Very informative

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Straining too much; not funny.

Unlike their earlier book, "Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar," which was brilliant and witty, this book is neither. They can be forgiven for the heavy subject matter, death, the soul, and afterlife, and for the depressed philosophers who dwelled on them, but not for bad jokes! There are plenty of opportunities for black humor, but I found little that was funny. The jokes seem terribly strained and not very clever whether taken in or out of context. Of course, they may say that I didn't like it because I am in denial, just like everybody else who has not chosen suicide, but I got more pleasure out of reading the existentialist philosophers themselves than listening to this book. I guess they've reached the limit of how far one can carry this style, but I'll give them an extra star for trying.

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4 people found this helpful