Wednesday

Emergency by Neil Strauss


Neil Strauss, probably most famous for his Motley Crue book the Dirt and his book about Pick-Up Artists, the Game, gets a little freaked out about the state of the world. Then he looks into it a little more and gets a lot freaked out, especially when he has to admit to himself that after a life lived in the city where a rolling blackout was the closest thing to the apocalypse so far, he is unprepared to survive any sort of calamity. So, throwing himself into his subject as usual, he decides to do whatever it takes to prepare himself.
The writing style is good. Neil Strauss has a way of writing that pulls you through just about whatever he’s covering. However, if you’re looking for a good book about survivalists, becoming a survivalist, or some kind of survivalist manual, look somewhere else.
A lot of the book is devoted to his attempts to get dual citizenship so that he has somewhere to go WTSHTF (When the Shit Hits the Fan). These parts are not very exciting. They mostly serve to make you understand that it’s tough to get citizenship somewhere else, which is a little scary, but the ultimate answer is that you can get a second citizenship just about anywhere, the only factor being how much you are willing to spend. Fucked up, yes, but not terribly surprising.
Because I don’t have a couple hundred thousand to spend (and I suspect most people don’t) I found those parts of the books pretty much worthless. It’s sort of like reading a book about a beginning chef who spends a shitload on ingredients that are way out of your price range. Other sections are more entertaining. It’s not so much that I was looking for survivalist tips, but reading about him going to a tracking school or spending a week without power and water is way more engaging than reading about how it sucks that shit is expensive and that the burecratic process in small island nations is very slow.
Other reviews say that he spends a good amount of time explaining the Why behind his wanting to learn survivalism. I would half agree with that. He does a good job highlighting events and policy changes that might make a person a little worried about living in the United States, explaining why he’s scared and why he thinks something bad might happen. What he doesn’t do (except for a brief section near the end) is explain the point of surviving in a wasteland.
When you read an apocalyptic book, like the Road, it has to occur to you that the main characters could just lay down and die. It does to me, anyway. But I never get to ask these fictional characters what keeps them moving, so the author has to make some attempt to explain it. In Emergency, I wanted to hear why someone would want to survive in an existence that most people, himself included towards the beginning, would consider hellish. Strauss was preparing himself to survive in the woods in a shelter made of sticks and leaves, but I don’t know why or what the point of that life might be. That was something I was looking for and didn’t get.
An unusual part of the book is that there is an armchair treasure hunt incorporated into it. There are short sections written in comic book form, and each of these sections includes a clue that is supposed to reveal the location of a cache that Strauss buried at one point in the book. Because I’m a dork, I spent a good hour trying to find the clues, figure out what they meant, and then figure out where the cache is. After that, I have no idea still. Okay, that’s not totally true. I have some idea, but nothing of confidence, so I’ll let you all know when I find the damn thing because now it’s an obsession. I bet my girlfriend will appreciate taking a vacation to some woods to unbury a box, especially when I don’t have the right spot and we spend three days digging holes.
The first thing I’d heard of like this was buried in David Blaine’s book. Supposedly there were clues hidden throughout that would lead you to $100,000 worth of treasure. And supposedly some lady found it. You can see the solution here: http://www.thefoolsparadise.com/db/solution.htm
To be honest, the whole thing is way too involved for me to even consider the possibility, and I question whether someone actually solved it or not. There’s a photo blog by the person who solved it, which seems pretty convenient as well, especially the part where she gives up when she’s almost there and then sees something on her drive home that gives her a Eureka! moment straight out of some Sherlock Holmes bullshit. Call me crazy, but I don’t trust someone who stands around in a block of ice and spends way too much time maintaining his beard and not nearly enough on those eyebrows.
On a similar books/treasure hunt path, there was and still is a circulating rumor that there is a secret ending to Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor which is embedded in the hardback back cover of some first edition copies.
The rumor has never proven true, from what I can tell. Maybe it’s a ploy by someone with a few first editions to try and rarify it and drive up the value. Although I can’t personally prove it either way, I have to believe that someone who found it wouldn’t be against providing photographic or textual evidence. But it’s kind of a cool rumor anyway.
So, pick up Emergency if you’re looking for an entertaining read and that’s about it. If you get through the first couple sections with no problems, then you’ll only build up speed from there.

Monday

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

After I finished this book, someone asked me whether it’s a good book for non-runners. Honestly, I have no idea.

Running has been a big part of my life for some time now. For the last ten years I’ve run. So it’s hard to say. When you put enough time into something, it’s pretty hard to separate yourself from it.

I can’t write a review from a non-runner’s perspective because that would be total speculation on my part.

What I can do is tell you that this is a fantastic book. If you are a runner, this is a must-read, easily the best book about running out there, and I’ve read a ton. You won’t find anything this in-depth, in touch, and you’ll never read anything else that gives you the vicarious thrills of superathletes and scientists alike.

The story is about the greatest endurance race of all time, but really that’s only a small part. It’s about a man who is feeling his body age and trying to figure what he can do about it. It’s about Caballo Blanco, a living legend whose story, a tall tale, is only more incredible because it is 100% true. The story of the Leadville 100 and the Tarahumara racing against Ann Trason is one of the best sports stories on the planet, expertly told by McDougall, and as any great sports story, it brings about greater truths about who we are and why we run.

More than anything, this books sets out to prove its title. Through science, through example, and through story after story of one incredible athlete after another, this book will leave no doubt in your mind that the greatest athletes in the world still like to get their drink on, that a group of humans can run down a deer, and that you and I were born to do it too.

It’s motivated me to try some new things. I don’t know if chia seeds are making me faster or stronger. And I can’t say for sure that barefoot running has unchained my feet and transformed them into running machines. But I can say that the spirit of the runners, Barefoot Ted, Scott Jurek, Billy “Bonehead” and Jen, the Lunas, and the dozens of characters in this book, each one more incredible than the last, the spirit of these runners is infectious and fuck this review I’m hitting the road.

Sunday

City of Thieves by David Benioff

I try to avoid WWII stories most of the time. I just feel a little over it. So when my book club picked City of Thieves I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was a WWII drama. On the other hand, it was written by David Benioff, the same guy who brought us the 25th Hour, so there was reason to think that it might not be the kind of schmaltzy, life-affiriming thing we've come to expect from WWII fiction. And on the other, third(?) hand, a Russian library regular told me that he had read the book and that it seemed better researched than most of the American books about Russia.

The thing that makes City of Thieves different is that it doesn't feel like a book trying to force emotion on you by being set in WWII. It's a better-told story than that, putting the plot and the strong dialogue out there and letting the reader decide how to feel. There were moments of levity, and there were moments of darkness. But the reason it works is because the book doesn't ask us to do what so many others do, which is to erase all previous joy because of the new suffering. Just because things are bad on page 78, the book doesn't expect readers to forget they were laughing on page 68. It also has a very extemporaneous feel, less planned and plotted out, more characters thrown into the grinder and ending up one place or another. It surprises readers without going for the big twist.
It's written almost exactly the way we like our war stories. There is viloence, danger, broadly drawn heroes The story is almost a little too fantastic in spots, but that's exactly what makes it a pitch-perfect war story as opposed to a war novel.

Thursday

The Internet Is a Playground by David Thorne


This book brings up the old question of Why Not Just Read It on the Internets?

What a great question, you jerk.

The success of David Thorne’s web site, www.27bslash6.com, got him a book deal. A complete book deal with pages, inks, cover, and so on. But part of the site’s success is that, working in graphic design, the web site is nicely formatted for computer viewing. Really it’s like reading an e-book where the intended format was a tiny screen. So why would one then take that e-book format and timewarp it into an analog book?

Well, because I don’t have the damn internet at home. Hence the above “jerk” comment.

The book is at its best in the email strings between David and his coworkers, local Blockbuster, and his son’s teacher. Like a sort of email Jerky Boy, he strings them along and the joke becomes the fact that someone would continue to correspond as long as they do. How much does someone have to tell you about the motion picture Water World before you, as a Blockbuster employee, feel that you’ve done your due diligence and let the dude rot in bad credit land? Apparently about one shitload.

The other postings vary. Some pretty great. Some great. Some pretty. Some none of those things.

You can probably just read it for free. Hell, you’re reading this on the internet right now, right? Try out this article: http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html and see if you like it.

About Me

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Cover My Ass Time: This is all happening in a magical, fictional universe. Any resemblance to anything ever is strictly the product of a weak imagination, for which I apologize.