Product Description

In Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales combines hard science and powerful storytelling to illuminate the mysteries of survival, whether in the wilderness or in meeting any of life's great challenges. This gripping narrative, the first book to describe the art and science of survival, will change the way you see your world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17224 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
"After the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, Laurence Gonzales' latest book would be the wise choice for any desert-island castaway."Conde Nast Traveller "Buy it so you know what to do if you happen to fall off a mountain."Anthony Sattin, The Sunday Times

Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Enough
A fascinating look into why we are who we are.

Charles Perrow, author of Normal Accidents
A feast of excitement and wonder. Makes complexity and chaos come alive...fantastic accounts of danger and death.

Customer Reviews

Very interesting
If you are looking for tips, tricks and techniques of survival - look elsewhere. You will not find anything for you here.

But...as surviving is about the mental state more than tools and techniques...here is where you are going to find the lot.

When I started reading it - I was just thinking "ok - so now where are these tricks I have to learn". Just stories and brain functions. But soon I started realizing that we are discussing the core of survival -any survival - the way we process information under stress, what kills us or saves us in a survival situation from within us.

This book is worth much more than any other that is going to tell you how to build a shelter or light up fire. This one tells you what your brain does in an extreme situation and what mental strategies work in your favor.

My interest grew in this book with every page. And many things (behaviors) from my life also became understood. A very interesting trip into myself I have made while reading this book.

This a book for all those who want to be prepared as well for all those who are interested in how the human brain works or in psychology in general. A lot of case studies (stories), a lot of very useful information. And all told in a very easy to read way.

Recommended

Not very well focused
I picked up this book hoping to read about a concise theory or view of survival. Instead I got a collection of various stories, often written as a novel and so wide in view (the story of Xerox, the story of a hike in Mexico, etc) that it was very hard to find a connection between them. Even though the first few chapters were good, I find myself thinking that the author mixed up survival, success, profit making, etc in an effort to state numerous different facts. I have read many other excellent books on the subject and I find this one a fairly poor choice.

Be cool.
I'm not an outdoor type. As an archetypical geek my worries are more about the server failing than a hungry grizzly bear wandering by (a HR type however ... ). I do recommend this book because it offers some cogent life lessons that have been hard learnt by people who earned their right to survive where others failed.

Be cool. This sums up the core message of the book. However this is not something that can be so easily summed up as a catch phrase, but as an attitude that needs be experienced and made be part of a person's core programming; in a religious spiritual terms to find of grace when disaster strikes, be it lost in the high mountains or facing a sudden process audit.