The Survivors Club

Summary: Which is the safest seat on an airplane? Where is the best place to have a heart attack? Why does religious observance add years to your life? How can birthdays be hazardous to your health?

THE SURVIVORS CLUB

Each second of the day, someone in America faces a crisis, whether it's a car accident, violent crime, serious illness, or financial trouble. Given the inevitability of adversity, we all wonder: Who beats the odds and who surrenders? Why do some people bound back and others give up? How can I become the kind of person who survives and thrives?

The fascinating, hopeful answers to these questions are found in THE SURVIVORS CLUB. In the tradition of Freakonomics and The Tipping Point, this book reveals the hidden side of survival by combining astonishing true stories, gripping scientific research, and the author's adventures inside the U.S. military's elite survival schools and the government's airplane crash evacuation course.

With THE SURVIVORS CLUB, you can also discover your own Survivor IQ through a powerful Internet-based test called the Survivor Profiler. Developed exclusively for this book, the test analyzes your personality and generates a customized report on your top survivor strengths.

There is no escaping life's inevitable struggles. But THE SURVIVORS CLUB can give you an edge when adversity strikes.

Review. The recent Air France tragedy might lead you to think that you're probably doomed if your airplane encounters a disaster during flight. According to The Survivors Club while there are certain flights like the unfortunate Air France tragedy in which surviving is impossible, 76.6 percent of the most serious crashes are survivable. The key factors are: (1) not to assume its hopeless; (2) take action rather than freeze or wait for instructions; (3) internalize the emergency evacuation directions given at the beginning of the flight; (4) formulate a personal emergency exit action plan; and (5) book the safest seat on the plane -- within five rows of an exit.

Sherwood's writing alternates between compelling stories of people who survived the seemingly impossible along with serving up "secrets" for what to do if disaster strikes. I especially enjoyed reading Sherwood's interview Nando Parrado, a survivor from 1972 Andes Mountains crash. Reading Alive, the story of this famous crash, along with Survivors Club would make for a great Reading Group discussion. The final section of the book is composed of a personal survivors analysis test.

Few books claim that they may save your life. Fewer still actually live up to this claim. The Survivors Club, however, is one tome that does warrant this claim.