Healthy Living Books Books

Rating: - Dry, go buy 'Deep Survival'
I think the premise of this book was really sound, and I was really excited about reading it. Regrettably, I had read it after reading Deep survival and as such I found 'Unthinkable' to be boring and not as well written as I would have liked. The book tended to focus on the issues of human failures in scenarios that cause the flight/fight or freeze response. In most parts it tended to read like an encyclopaedia and was about as dry and arid as the Mohave.

As an aside, one of the other things, which really irked me, was the author's selection of members of Israel's armed forces as heroes. This annoyed me because there are many more Palestinians who have survived and handled adversity on a level unbeknownst to many of us. Why not interview the fathers, brothers and mothers who have handled having their children shot in school by Israeli snipers while attending lessons? The author makes it a point to underline how she follows 'the good journalists code' of not paying for interviews, surely another such code is to report in a balanced and fair way?

So, all in all, not an especially illuminating book, read DEEP SURVIVAL, which is a much better and infinitely more interesting read. I did give 'Unthinkable' 3 stars because of the research done, but the book lost 2 stars because of the immensely boring writing style and poor choice of models.

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Rating: - This Book Can Save Your Life, Let You Sleep Better at Night, and Learn How to Improve in All Areas
This is the best non-fiction book you are likely to read this year.

I was attracted to this book because I have been in bad car accidents and two hotel fires, once had the airplane window near me break during a flight, designed the plan for an event where the safety team saved two children's lives, and have driven through many dangerous blizzards where every other car was spinning off the road out of control. From those experiences, I learned to appreciate that there were good and bad features about my reactions during those stressful times. I was also astonished to see how many people would have been injured or killed if someone hadn't taken fast and insistent action.

Needless to say, I'm convinced that I will have experiences like these again in the future and wanted to be better prepared. I was very pleased with what I learned as Ms. Ripley explained the psychology and physiology of dealing with various life-threatening situations. With this added information, I'm sure I'll make faster and better decisions in the future . . . and implement those decisions better.

Many books written by journalists about serious subjects don't get much below the surface of who, what, when, where, why, and how of events they wish to use as set pieces. Ms. Ripley is the happy exception to that rule. This author really thinks about what she is studying and went all over the world to gain more information. In addition, she writes well.

I was very impressed by how well she expressed the problem of human beings not knowing what to do if they haven't thought about a problem before or haven't had experience in an area. This is a subject of much interest to me because it is the main barrier to people grasping important opportunities that they are ignoring.

I hope that Ms. Ripley will consider writing a book that looks at why people don't seize opportunities when they are not in a threatening situation. I believe that her recommendations for better leadership, more preparation, clearer directions, advance experience with simulations, and knowing yourself better would apply to that class of problems as well. By combining the two perspectives, I think she could help us understand how to be more successful, as well as safer.

Brava, Ms. Ripley!