In this lively and engaging book, the nation's foremost expert on urban legends looks in detail at a dozen rampant and long-lived examples of this vigorous category of contemporary folklore.Jan Harold Brunvand traces the histories, variations, sources, and meanings of urban legends such as "The Red Velvet Cake, " "The Exploding Toilet, " and "Lights Out!, " pointing out their common elements -- notably, their insistence on the truth of the story and their attribution to a "friend of a friend" -- and pinning down the qualities that make them hard to believe yet impossible to dismiss. For those interested in popular culture and current events as well as those wary of being taken in by false information, Brunvand's book reinforces his most basic piece of advice: "Don't believe everything you hear.