Review by Darcy Short

Like most of us, Neil Strauss lived a sheltered life of convenience and modern comfort. But after the distressing events of the 2000s, the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001 and the financial collapse of 2008, Strauss decided he couldn’t rely on society to take care of him if sh*t hit the fan. He must learn to take care of himself.

Neil Strauss Emergency

The efforts Strauss takes to teach himself how to survive without help from others ranges from learning self-sufficiency in tracking school to taking urban survival classes and from stockpiling food and gas masks to getting a second passport from the tiny island nation of St. Kitts. He is a funny and likeable narrator, which helps given how paranoid some of his fears sound and how desperate and expensive the lengths to which he takes his survival quest.

From his book, I learned that surviving the apocalypse is expensive. The short graphic-novel style survival lessons, how to flee attack dogs, survival riots and so on, provide handy tips for the amateur survivalist. The rest of us are going to have to accept that our bank accounts are not big enough to let us survive.

Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss
Publisher: It Books
PubDate: 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0060898779