Dept of Huh?
Apparently, books can kill you.
In case you were looking for an excuse to put down that copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, here it is: in the United Kingdom more people are hurt by books (2,707 a year) than by training weights (1,884), trampolines (1,902) or cricket balls and bats (1,174). Lest you think only British books are hazardous, you should know that 10,683 U.S. citizens lose their battles with what the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System categorizes as “books, magazines, albums or scrapbooks” in an average year, and another 1,490 are clobbered by magazine racks or bookends.
Huh? There is a National Electronic Injury Surveillance System? Apparently, yes. (It’s a sad state of affairs when the existence of this body surprises me more than the suggestion that people should put down a book for fear of physical injury.)
Link via Waterboro Lib blog.