The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook

This is the latest edition of a little book on how to survive both fairly common (car accidents, getting lost, dropping your cell phone in the toilet) and extremely uncommon (grid collapse, pirate attacks, murderous clowns) situations. There are genuinely useful suggestions (how to treat frostbite), as well as tongue in cheek prescriptions (how to escape from an out of control Smart Home). All in all, I found it to be mildly entertaining.

"The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook" is a grab bag of useful, humorous, and interesting information about a variety of potentially disastrous situations you might find yourself in. Covering everything from quicksand to plane crashes, rampaging bulls to tsunamis, there is a wealth of survival information packed into this book.

I don't normally comment on the physical book itself, but it this case it bears mention. The hardback is nicely constructed, compact in size (about 5.5" x 7.25"), and feels like it would go naturally in a bugout bag or hiking pack.

That having been said, the book wouldn't be particularly useful in the moment of disaster; by the time you were able to get to the book and look up the right chapter it may be too show more late. This information is best if studied ahead of time.

"The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook" would make a great gift for the adventurer in your life.

NB: I received a free copy of this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. show less

I was a little surprised to see this book listed in a recent LibraryThing "Early Reviewers" list, since the Worst-Case Scenario series has been a staple of chain-bookstore inventories for years. But I was happy to receive this volume, an enlarged and updated twentieth anniversary version of the original, nicely hardbound.

The concept behind the series should be familiar to most bookshop browsers by now: it's a compilation of simple, matter-of-fact instructions for dealing with situations which are both extremely unlikely and frighteningly life-threatening. The target audience is clearly readers with a dark and slightly warped sense of the absurd, and fortunately I fit that category. Anyone who purchases or attempts to use the book as an show more actual field guide is likely to be thoroughly disappointed, and perhaps fatally so. Much of the advice seems fundamentally sound, albeit very superficial, but some of it is dangerously flawed. (As a former park ranger, for example, I can confirm that the "How to Escape from a Bear" chapter may be effective against a black bear, but could kill you if you met a grizzly.)

The best scenarios in this book are the classic ones that have endured since the book's early printings: "How to Perform a Tracheotomy," "How to Jump from a Moving Car," and so on. For this edition, the author apparently decided that he could milk a few extra bucks from the franchise by adding some specific 21st-century scenarios, like "How to Tell if a Clown is Murderous," and "How to Survive if your Smart Home Outsmarts You." Nearly all of these are disappointments, in terms of both advice and humor, and are not at all in the spirit of the original concept. They made me wish I'd been given a copy of the original printing, instead.

The book is still fun, though, even though the series and concept are getting long in the tooth. show less

This book was all the rage as a graduation gift during my last few years of high school, so predictably I received a copy when I graduated high school. I was never sure whether it was supposed to be serious or a spoof until I finally read it. Indeed, the book is meant to be serious (well, mostly serious), although I think the giving of it to me in particular was meant to be a spoof. The book is chock full of information that I would never need (or never remember if by some bizarre chance I would need it), like how to fend off a mountain lion attack. Still, I found it oddly entertaining and couldn't put it down once I finally started reading it. It's probably of greatest benefit to hikers, campers, and other outdoors-y people, but I show more still reserve a space for it on my shelves, too. show less

I aspire to be prepared in various situations and I like learning new facts, so I enjoyed this book very much. As I understand it this edition includes most / all of the previous topics (but I'm not positive about that), with some apparently new additions (e.g. How to Survive an Out-of-Control Autonomous Car). Averaging about 4 pages per topic it's easy to hop around in the book reading and rereading. At 326 pages it's not really a pocket-sized book. (So why not make it 400+ pages?) If I had to quibble about anything I'd say an index would be nice. Regardless I loved this book and know I will continue returning to it.

I'd seen other reviews of this book that mentioned it was simplistic. I would agree that some of the advice is obvious show more (e.g. How to Survive a Tornado / On Foot in the Open: Get to a Structure). Such obvious advice can't be omitted though. They are giving a game plan for what to do. The game plan needs to be thorough and complete which tends to begin with obvious known actions. In addition for liability reasons you need to make the instructions idiot proof. So the advice sometimes starts out obvious but becomes more informative and revelatory (e.g. If in a car and a tornado is coming in a line directly toward you and you can't get to a structure it is best to drive South and you should not drive North). Furthermore sometimes what I thought was obvious turns out to be wrong. (e.g. Snakes on a Plane: Do not grab the tail). So I'm happy to get confirmation on the obvious actions I already knew and even happier to be corrected about "obvious" actions I was wrong about. show less

I read this book or one like it back in the early 2000s and thought it was a fine casual conversation kind of book--something you'd say "did you know" about or, "guess what this book says about...." I remembered it as being mildly interesting, but not something I particularly wanted to own myself. I think I gave a copy of one to one of my brothers as a gift.

Now, though... I wouldn't buy this book. It's not that it's bad, but--it feels somewhat dated. I've been struggling with trying to figure out what's bothering me so much about it. I think part of my problem is that it's mixing serious, terrible things with silly things in a way that seems disrespectful to people who've suffered and died. (There has been so much on the news about show more school shootings, that putting surviving a gunman in the same book as spotting a murderous clown seems wrong.) And the other part of my problem is that I'm feeling like part of an ignored demographic. It's great to give advice on how to help deliver a baby in the back of a car, but it's more than a little problematic to include that advice without including any on how to, I don't know, give birth alone with no assistance at all. Ignoring female-oriented worst-case scenarios is not the same as being gender-neutral.

I would be really curious to know why they decided to come out with this edition now, and with so little updating. Is it just that it's 20 years later and they were hoping for another hurrah? show less

This is a guidebook on how to survive should the worst happen. It covers all sorts of deadly situations from truly catastrophic to minor injuries. It's full of grim humor, but useful for the survivalist or accident prone. A little depressing though.