"Gonzalez takes us on a fascinating, fast-paced, and exciting adventure into survival. His captivating stories, many from personal experience, will keep you turning the pages, stopping only to imagine how you, and your brain, would react when faced with a survival experience."
"I tore through Deep Survival like I'd been waiting to read it my whole life. Gonzales's writing is effortless and compelling, and his research is first-rate. I can't imagine a better book on the topic."
"Riveting accounts of avalanches, mountain accidents, sailors lost at sea, and the man-made hell of 9/11."
Sports Illustrated - Stephen Bodio
"A feast of excitement and wonder. Makes complexity and chaos come alive, girdled by neurological processes, drenched with fantastic accounts of danger and death. You will see the world differently."
"Great stories of disaster and survival…combined with revealing science about the physiology and psychology of how we deal with crisis. [Gonzales’s] science is accurate, accessible, up-to-date, and insightful. An extremely good book."
"Professional rescuers will love Deep Survival . It goes to the heart of the instincts that drive us to risk our own lives to save others."
When confronted with a life-threatening situation, 90% of people freeze or panic, says Gonzales in this exploration of what makes the remaining 10% stay cool, focused and alive. Gonzales (The Hero's Apprentice; The Still Point), who has covered survival stories for National Geographic Explorer, Outside and Men's Journal, uncovers the biological and psychological reasons people risk their lives and why some are better at it than others. In the first part of the book, the author talks to dozens of thrill-seekers-mountain climbers, sailors, jet pilots-and they all say the same thing: danger is a great rush. "Fear can be fun," Gonzales writes. "It can make you feel more alive, because it is an integral part of saving your own life." Pinpointing why and how those 10% survive is another story. "They are the ones who can perceive their situation clearly; they can plan and take correct action," Gonzales explains. Survivors, whether they're jet pilots landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier or boatbuilders adrift on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, share certain traits: training, experience, stoicism and a capacity for their logical neocortex (the brain's thinking part) to override the primitive amygdala portion of their brains. Although there's no surefire way to become a survivor, Gonzales does share some rules for adventure gleaned from the survivors themselves: stay calm, be decisive and don't give up. Remembering these rules when crisis strikes may be tough, but Gonzales's vivid descriptions of life in the balance will stay with readers. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Humans have a way of courting accidents. What separates survivors from victims is preparation and spirit—but also sheer dumb luck. "To survive," writes novelist/journalist Gonzales (One Zero Charlie, 1993, etc.), "you must first be annealed in the fires of peril." Well, yes: and peril, though sometimes in the eye of the beholder, is a constant companion of many folks, whether they court it or not—one reason, Gonzales observes, that inner-city kids tend to do better in outdoor survival training than do suburbanites, who have far less experience with predators. Thrill-seekers who put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of the adrenaline rush may have all the right gear and even a little know-how, but most of them are just ordinary Joes who, "when put under stress, are unable to think clearly or solve simple problems. They get rattled. They panic. They freeze." Cataloguing, often by way of personal anecdote, the dazzling array of possibilities by which gnarly outdoor experiences can become annihilating ones—a body surfer hits the wrong tide and gets dashed against the rocks, a snowmobiler gets chewed up in an avalanche, a hang glider augers into a mountain or a parachutist into the waiting earth—Gonzales ponders just what traits, and just what training, can increase such an ordinary person’s odds of survival in tight situations, short of simply staying home. (But even then, he reckons, we get snuffed. Given that one person dies in this country every minute in a transportation accident, the death of only a dozen-odd climbers every year makes mountaineering seem a safe bet by comparison.) This work, oddly delightful for all its gruesome moments, closes with a compendiumof tips for staying alive in the wild, among them the necessity of staying calm when danger rises, waiting for the fear to pass, planning what to do next, and believing that the odds are with you against all evidence to the contrary. A superb, entertaining addition to a nature buff’s library—or for anyone not tucked safely away in a bunker. Agent: Gail Hochman/Brandt & Hochman
"Should be required reading for anyone venturing off the beaten path."
"Deep Survival provides a new lens for looking at survival, risk taking, and life itself. Gonzales takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride that ends with rules of survival we can all stand to learn. Equally important, he answers the question: what is the value of taking risks. I love this book."
"A gripping and thoughtful investigation of the greatest adventure of all—survival. Through riveting tales of disaster and endurance, Gonzales explores the icy mental clarity that characterizes survivors."
"Laurence Gonzales has masterfully woven together personal survival stories with the study of human perception to reach rock-bottom truths about how to live with risk."
"A fascinating look into why we are who we are."
"Deep Survival is by far the best book on the many insights into epic survival stories I have ever read."
Great stories of disaster and survival... combined with revealing science about the physiology and psychology of how we deal with crisis.... Accurate, accessible, up-to-date and insightful.
