Monday, March 30, 2009

Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life


















Spoiler alert: This book will not "save your life." I finished reading the above book after like 5 days. It is a really easy read, and an entertaining book. However, all this book did was make me want to read actual survivalist books, because this book barely even scratched the surface on the topic. 

This book taught me one thing. The best way to gain survival skills is to get a book deal allowing you to write a book about gaining survival skills. Neil Strauss comes across as a self centered braggart in the book, that acts like we all have unlimited free time. He tries to relate to the common man by reiterating he is not rich a thousand times. While this may true, he is certainly fairly well off, and definitely has more free time than most people. 

The book is a series of anecdotes on how Neil Strauss learned to be a man. While this was fairly interesting, I don't believe I really learned any practical skills in the book, all it did was act as a reference for other more useful reading. I can't say it was a bad book, because it did have me second guessing my country. Strauss does make some good points on how highly we rely on the system, and the book did make me want to go out and buy a gun, and some survival books. Early on in the book you want to roll your eyes and call Strauss  douche, but by the end you kind of relate to at least the premise of not trusting the government fully. I recommend the book, simply because the topic is really interesting, and important in today's world. 

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