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A review by amyrhoda
When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes by Cody Lundin
informative
slow-paced
4.0
[This review was originally posted on my blog in May 2009]
This book is rich in advice on how to survive a week or a few months without the modern conveniences we
take for granted.
The book is divided into two parts: "Head Candy" and "Hand Candy". Head Candy covers a wide range of philosophical, psychological, and physiological concerns, including posttraumatic stress disorder, consensus decision making, the power of gratitude, the importance of positive thinking. . . . Plenty of the material is
valuable, such as the importance of continuing to communicate with your family, recognizing the signs of excess stress in others, and the impact of fear on physical function, but there's plenty that could be left out too. There's a lot of woo-woo stuff about thinking positive, and putting good vibes into the universe to get good stuff back.
You're 84 pages into the book before you get into the nitty-gritty of what you're gonna need and how much of it. That's the Hand Candy section, each chapter of which covers a particular need: shelter, water, food, sewage
disposal, hygiene, light, heat for cooking, first-aid, self-defense, communication, transport, and how to get out if you have to.
Although the book is written in a light-hearted, humourous way, Lundin doesn't talk down to his readers: each chapter starts with a technical description of the matter at hand. For example, in the food chapter Lundin
discusses the different sources of calories (protein, fat and carbs) and how the body metabolizes each one. He also devotes a page to explaining the Glycemic Index, two to calculating your Basal Metabolic Rate, and three on an overview of Great Food Shortages in History, most of which resulted in people eating each other (just in case you weren't sure whether you wanted to store some food).
The light section has two pages on the history of artificial lighting and a one-page primer on batteries. And so on.
I would call this book over-written. Or maybe under-edited. Personally, I love all this information, but then I thrive on non-fiction. I'm not sure that the average reader wants this much background in a book of this nature. However, if you can get through all the extra stuff, the advice in here is gold. Lundin has years
of hands-on experience living off the grid, living in the wild and leading survival courses. The book is rich with anecdotes and advice direct from experience, and when Lundin doesn't know something and couldn't
find it out, he's blunt about it. (Like, how long does whole wheat keep anyway?)
He is pragmatic and considerate — for example, a couple of times he specifically addresses the needs of fat people without being judgmental.
I took copious notes while reading this book, and I now have a very long list of things to do and buy. Once I've done them all I will feel much more prepared in the event of something going horribly wrong for quite a long time.
Incidentally, if you should think that planning for a long-term failure of some or most of our infrastructure is paranoid, you might not know that the CDC's worse-case scenario pandemic plan involves the general public staying home for up to three months. Or maybe a [solar storm](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16400-major-solar-storm-could-cause-lasting-damage.html) will knock out the power grid indefinitely. The fact is I'd rather be ready and wrong.
This book is rich in advice on how to survive a week or a few months without the modern conveniences we
take for granted.
The book is divided into two parts: "Head Candy" and "Hand Candy". Head Candy covers a wide range of philosophical, psychological, and physiological concerns, including posttraumatic stress disorder, consensus decision making, the power of gratitude, the importance of positive thinking. . . . Plenty of the material is
valuable, such as the importance of continuing to communicate with your family, recognizing the signs of excess stress in others, and the impact of fear on physical function, but there's plenty that could be left out too. There's a lot of woo-woo stuff about thinking positive, and putting good vibes into the universe to get good stuff back.
You're 84 pages into the book before you get into the nitty-gritty of what you're gonna need and how much of it. That's the Hand Candy section, each chapter of which covers a particular need: shelter, water, food, sewage
disposal, hygiene, light, heat for cooking, first-aid, self-defense, communication, transport, and how to get out if you have to.
Although the book is written in a light-hearted, humourous way, Lundin doesn't talk down to his readers: each chapter starts with a technical description of the matter at hand. For example, in the food chapter Lundin
discusses the different sources of calories (protein, fat and carbs) and how the body metabolizes each one. He also devotes a page to explaining the Glycemic Index, two to calculating your Basal Metabolic Rate, and three on an overview of Great Food Shortages in History, most of which resulted in people eating each other (just in case you weren't sure whether you wanted to store some food).
The light section has two pages on the history of artificial lighting and a one-page primer on batteries. And so on.
I would call this book over-written. Or maybe under-edited. Personally, I love all this information, but then I thrive on non-fiction. I'm not sure that the average reader wants this much background in a book of this nature. However, if you can get through all the extra stuff, the advice in here is gold. Lundin has years
of hands-on experience living off the grid, living in the wild and leading survival courses. The book is rich with anecdotes and advice direct from experience, and when Lundin doesn't know something and couldn't
find it out, he's blunt about it. (Like, how long does whole wheat keep anyway?)
He is pragmatic and considerate — for example, a couple of times he specifically addresses the needs of fat people without being judgmental.
I took copious notes while reading this book, and I now have a very long list of things to do and buy. Once I've done them all I will feel much more prepared in the event of something going horribly wrong for quite a long time.
Incidentally, if you should think that planning for a long-term failure of some or most of our infrastructure is paranoid, you might not know that the CDC's worse-case scenario pandemic plan involves the general public staying home for up to three months. Or maybe a [solar storm](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16400-major-solar-storm-could-cause-lasting-damage.html) will knock out the power grid indefinitely. The fact is I'd rather be ready and wrong.