How to Wrestle Free From an Alligator: 4. If its jaws are closed on something you want to remove (for example, a limb), tap or punch it on the snout.

Though it's being marketed as a "humorous" title--after all, it's unlikely you'll be called upon to land a plane, jump from a motorcycle to a moving car or win a sword fight--the information contained in The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook is all quite sound. Authors Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht consulted numerous experts in their fields (they're cited at the end of the book) to discover how to survive various and sundry awful events. Parachute doesn't open? Your best bet for survival is to hook your arms through the straps of a fellow jumper's chute--and even then you're likely to dislocate both shoulders and break both legs. Car sinking in water? Open the window immediately to equalise pressure, then open the car door and swim to the surface. Buried in an avalanche? Spit on the snow--it will tell you which direction is really up. Then dig as fast as you can. Each survival skill is explained in simple steps with helpful illustrations. Most stress the need to be prepared--both mentally and physically. For example, to escape from quicksand, you will need to lay a pole on the surface of the quicksand, flop on your back atop the pole and pull your legs out one by one. No pole? No luck. "When walking in quicksand country, carry a stout pole--it will help you get out should you need to."

Hopefully you'll never need to know how to build a fire without matches, perform a tracheotomy or treat a bullet wound. But in the words of Survival Evasion Resistance Escape Instructor "Mountain" Mel Deweese, "You never know." --Sunny Delaney

It also gives you something to show off to your friends about.. Not everyone knows how to wrestle a crocodile! Great Read!


Not useless trivia   November 11, 2004
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This fascinating little book is a collection of How-To tips that could mean the difference between survival and a rather unpleasant demise. The authors rounded up the suggestions of a group of experts in their respective fields, and organized them by subject. Everything is covered here from How to Escape from a Sinking Car, through How to Escape from a Bear, How to Deliver a Baby in a Taxicab, to How to Survive When Lost in the Mountains.

On the surface this book might seem like a book of useless trivia, but such is not the case. In fact, only this past summer, in the city of Joliet, a Chicago couple took a wrong corner and took a dead-end street into a river. If only they had seen the section on escaping from a sinking car.

In all seriousness, this book does contain useful information that everyone should probably read at least once in his or her lifetime.


Not exactly humour...   August 20, 2003
 2 out of 5 found this review helpful

While this book is listed under "Humour", this is only partially true. It is funny, but only because of the deadpan style used throughout this brilliant series.


Update your common knownledge   August 1, 2002
 1 out of 9 found this review helpful

The book delivers perfectly on updating you common knowledge. Don't expect it to be funny, surving is serious business. Illustrations and step-by-step lists makes it a pleasure reading but chances you'll ever need this information can't be is less than 1/100.


NOT humour, simply strange tips for unlikely situations   July 27, 2001
 20 out of 37 found this review helpful

Do not, like me, buy this book expecting it to be amusing, because it isn't - at all... The book is intended to be useful, and should one find onself in any of the mentioned scenarios I'm sure it's great. BUT I thought I was buying a humourous book and I was disappointed.