After some Internet research I’m calling this a 50/50 split. I never heard of Neil Strauss until I came across this piece about his douchebaggery on The Firearm Blog in which Strauss claims to have developed a vampiric bloodlust after supposedly receiving “survival training” that sounds more like a Palo Mayombe ceremony than instruction on how to survive hardship. From the far too credulous pages of The Boston Globe : Next he takes a course in killing with a knife , during whic

Earlier this year author Neil Strauss published a book about survivalism. I was planning on reading Emergency until I read the Boston Globe review : Next he takes a course in killing with a knife, during which an instructor named Mad Dog demands that he slaughter a live goat. Strauss also studies wilderness survival, learning to build a shelter from leaves, find water, and live off the land. After getting instruction in shooting, he finds himself changing from wimpy writer to would-be kill

This book might indeed save your life. Survival schools. Second passports. Urban Escape and Evasion courses. CERT training. Bugging out. How to escape from attack dogs. Offshore asset protection. Perpetual traveling. Using one’s credit card as a knife. Killing and skinning your own goat. These are just some of the survivalist, “how-to-be-prepared-for-anything” topics covered in Neil Strauss’ latest, Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life (2009). Neil Strauss is primar

Emergency This Book Will Save Your Life Neil Strauss 2009 432 Pages Okay, my reading list remains decidedly gloomy. I swear, I’ve started other books, Joseph Ellis’ American Creation sits on my nightstand, Keynes’ “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” is in the den, and I was even making decent progress through a Kindle edition of Ludwig von Mises’ “The Theory of Money and Credit.” But Neil Strauss’ “Emergency” was much more fun if only because reading about

LOS ANGELES -- Neil Strauss hardly seems like a guy who'd kill a goat and gut it with his own hands.

Best-selling author Neil Strauss has spent the last several years training to become a full-fledged survivalist -- learning how to live off the land with D.I.Y. weapons, homemade solar stills, debris huts, and hot-wired cars. In an exclusive video and Q&A, Strauss shows us how it’s done.

Best-selling author Neil Strauss has spent the last several years training to become a full-fledged survivalist -- learning how to live off the land with D.I.Y. weapons, homemade solar stills, debris huts, and hot-wired cars. In an exclusive video and Q&A, Strauss shows us how it’s done.

Best-selling author Neil Strauss helped Jenna Jameson show us How to Make Love Like a Porn Star . Then he taught us the finer points of attracting mates in The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists . Now, Strauss has new knowledge to drop. In his just-published book, Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life , he schools us on what to do, if everything suddenly goes to hell. Strauss has spent the last several years training to become a full-fledged survivalist -- learnin

Call it the Neil Strauss effect. Weeks before the bestselling author’s new book hit the streets, one of the preparedness classes he wrote about started seeing an uptick in registration. "Emergency," in stores today, is the name of the book. In it, Strauss channels his inner survivalist, taking dozens of emergency preparedness classes, including gun training, flight lessons, CPR and — the course that’s seeing the boost — Urban Escape and Evasion . Run by Kevin Reeve, who got a lot of ink