Customer Reviews

Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like in "The Game", in his new book "Emergency" Neil takes us to a different reality that most of us are unaware of. This time Strauss immerses himself in a community which interest and obsession is to be prepared for the next world crisis.
History repeats itself, and it is just a matter of time until the world we live in falls into chaos again; when we face this challenges, only the best prepared will survive.

While the content of "The Game" differs from that of "Emergency", both books create a similar effect in terms of making the reader reevaluate what he thought he knew about the subject. Ideas and behaviors that initially appear to be extremist, illogical and hard to believe become clear, rational, and necessary.

Once Again, Strauss' efforts result in a book or guide that offers an easier start for those who want to follow his steps. In the case of this new launch, his determination to be prepared for the next crisis will help you learn how to survive the worst that this world has to offer. Thanks Neil!

The book itself is very interesting and captivating. Neil's particular story and his entertaining way of telling it will keep you thrilled from start to finish.
Whether you are looking for an escape plan for when everything you know falls into chaos, or just entertaining and exiting reading, I strongly recommend getting "Emergency".

I just finished reading this book and I had never read a Neil Strauss book in my life before. I think he is definitely a good writer and the book got alot more interesting after it became more about survival and less about the legal work involved with survival. I think he got the point across in the end and I think the book is definitely worth a read. Not an edge of your seat book and not anything I was expecting. The title is a little misleading as it's more a story then a guide. If you're expecting some sort of survival guide then this book is not for you. If you want a book with short little anecdotes about the authors pursuit of survival techniques and you have a little bit of a sense of humor and imagination then this book is for you. Either way, I had a fun time reading it for the most part and I definitely think Neil Strauss is a good author.

This book is a pretty good biography of someone going through panic at the possible fall of modern society and taking steps toward improving his chances of survival. It isn't really anything close to other books by Neil Strauss, and a lot of the tips included in the book might not be easily available to everybody.

Not a must read book by any means, but I kinda enjoyed it.

It provides some information of how to survive in some particular situations. it is helpful.

Once again, Neil Strauss has penetrated a culture that is little known to the general population. This is not a how to book, it is a detailed account of Neil's path to learning survival tactics, techniques and philosophy. This was a great read and provides several references if you would like to learn 'how to'.

The ideal reader for this book is someone who feels compelled to start planning how to get out of every room safely in case of an earthquake just as soon as the room is entered.

Walter Mitty would have loved this book with its vivid fantasy lived out of preparing for the worst (referred to here as "WTSHTF"). I must admit that quite a few of the sections were pretty interesting to me, as well. I felt regressed to the age of nine at those points in the narrative. The book's drawback is that Mr. Strauss usually emphasizes the emotions of being at risk and developing confidence at the expense of presenting the evidence of how to be effective in a difficult situation.

Ultimately, Emergency comes across as self-parodying for the reader to come to terms with the excess of paranoia here. I felt like the idea behind these experiences was to spend lots of money having exotic adventures and then to write a best-selling book about it.

It also seemed to me that a book of genuine advice for a few more common emergencies would have been more interesting than this take-off on the idea of fleeing a fascist government or surviving civil unrest.

Another drawback is that you probably know more about survival than Strauss did when he began his search for safety. The clueless parts of the book may seem more than a little lame.

I thought the parts about escaping from kidnappers were the best. Those exercises sounded like a lot of fun.

What will you learn? A little about a lot of things including the challenges of getting a second passport if you are an American, opening an offshore banking account, protecting your assets from lawyers and the U.S. government, killing and dressing a goat, getting water with a solar still, preparing caches and escape routes from urban areas, some of the many schools that will prepare you to be able to survive without resources in the wilderness or a city, some forms of emergency training, and how some people try to stay off the radar of any government.

Do you need to know any of this? Probably not. It's more like reading about Robinson Crusoe and being interested in what to do on a desert island.

Mr. Strauss's sense of humor is pretty good. I especially enjoyed the contrast between his take-charge, be-prepared-for-any-eventuality approach and his girl friend's desire to avoid any risk . . . often being afraid about higher risk events than Mr. Strauss was.

Enjoy a little paranoia!

But if you want to feel more loved and confident, Jesus will do you more good.

perfectly written and gives you a great base and ideas of how it really works. not just describing how to do it, but the writer does it.

It felt like the book was due before something interesting happened. It could have been a good book if Strauss waited until he gained some expertise in the field or something interesting happened. Instead the book is boring and not particularly informative. He tries hard to make this neophyte filler material sounds exciting, but nothing actually happens.

The second half isn't nearly as awful as the first half. The first half is Neil's non-adventures asking uninteresting characters if they know how to get a second passport and they don't. Finally he finds a guy who will get one for him and he wires him $67,284 and also needs to spend $300,000+ buying a property there. I'm still not sure why he thinks a second passport is that important to take out a second mortgage for.

The second half is stuff he does to kill time during the year he is waiting for the second passport to be issued. Here he takes genuinely useful courses in guns, CERT training, CPR and first aid, tracking, knives, motorcycles, fishing, urban surivival, emergency management, EMT, CEMP, and ham radio. Do we readers learn anything from this? Not really. It's about Neil Strauss' time taking these courses. The book ends when the second passport is ready. Neil does nothing to reach the thrilling conclusion; the lawyer says it is ready and Neil picks it up. Yes, the plot of the book is he looks for a lawyer to get him a second passport, hires him, waits a year, and then picks it up.

If there was a recommended bibliography or lists of recommended supplies, survival shops, survival courses, and escape vehicles at the end of the book, then I would recommend skipping the rest of the book and reading just that appendix instead. It doesn't have those, so I can't recommend any of it. His website does list the items in his "bug-out bag", so you might find that interesting. That bag is supposed to be things you grab when fleeing to keep you alive for three days, but it contains way too much for that--including 80 tampons, so I can't really recommend that either.