Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why (Paperback)

by Laurence Gonzales (Author)

Book Details
* Paperback: 318 pages
* Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 30, 2004)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0393326152
* ISBN-13: 978-0393326154
* Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
* Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
* Rating:

Book Description
“Unique among survival books…stunning…enthralling. Deep Survival makes compelling, and chilling, reading.”—Penelope Purdy, Denver Post

After her plane crashes, a seventeen-year-old girl spends eleven days walking through the Peruvian jungle. Against all odds, with no food, shelter, or equipment, she gets out. A better-equipped group of adult survivors of the same crash sits down and dies. What makes the difference?

Examining such stories of miraculous endurance and tragic death—how people get into trouble and how they get out again (or not)—Deep Survival takes us from the tops of snowy mountains and the depths of oceans to the workings of the brain that control our behavior. Through close analysis of case studies, Laurence Gonzales describes the “stages of survival” and reveals the essence of a survivor—truths that apply not only to surviving in the wild but also to surviving life-threatening illness, relationships, the death of a loved one, running a business during uncertain times, even war.

Fascinating for any reader, and absolutely essential for anyone who takes a hike in the woods, this book will change the way we understand ourselves and the great outdoors.

Deep Survival Review
The author presents science and psychology of survival in a way that is way more than science or pysch. Every story of survival (and there are a ton of them) is inspirational and awe inspiring. I love how each story melts into the overall plot, to form a coherent story from the first page to the last.

I’ve given copies of Deep Survival to five friends from very diverse backgrounds. Each one has thanked me. The book isn’t a linear, Cartesian analysis about how a person enters a zone of great risk at point A and, after following a prescription of do’s and don’ts, exits alive or dead at point Z. The author knows it isn’t that simple. Each story becomes its own survival sermon, a grim eulogy for those who die and a paean to grace and luck for those who live. Each time I revisit Deep Survival, I find something valuable. I have added it to the very short list of books that I reread every three or four years.

This book is mandatory reading for anyone faced with extreme adversity. It very effectively sets forth a layperson’s blueprint for the survivor mentality – affording you a no-risk peek into the edges of survival without having to float at sea for seventy-one days to understand what is “normal” under those circumstances. “Deep Survival” is a brilliant look into understanding your mind and learning how to adapt: finding sanity and survival in situations where “herd” thinking would lead you to believe you are afforded none. I am not into the deep sciences, but I was riveted to his presentation of matters that in other contexts would probably lose my attention. Gonzales is a gifted, entertainingly punky, writer who’s on top of his topic. One takes away his meticulous, first-hand research into these disasters and appreciates his some twenty years of study in this area. “Deep Survival” is definitely a psychological book illustrated with adventure stories, rather than the converse. Some readers are either not ready for the book’s message or are presented with an unexpected text and turn off. If you are just looking for an adventure book, you would do well to read some of the books citied in here first: “Adrift,” “Into Thin Air” or “Red Sky in the Mourning” (sic).

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