Customer Reviews

A Paranoid's Ultimate Survival Guide: Dust Mites to Meteorites, Tsunamis to Ticks, Killer Clouds to Jellyfish, Solar Flares to Salmonella

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Blending humor with authentic hazards, this tells how to cope with feelings of terror over everything from dust mites and meteorites to solar flares and poisoning. These are everyday hazards for the most part: the authors assess the severity of these threats and offer suggestions for overcoming them.

. . . and wondering how Reviewer mcHAIKU survived all the trauma of Wars & Pestilence and lived to be 80 without becoming paranoid. (?) My blithe attitude may have to make an about face with one granddaughter studying in the San Andreas Fault area, another beginning studies in the vicinity of the New Madrid Fault, plus a family living in Indiana's Tormado Alley.

This book may be referred to with unhappy frequency. For 'head-scratching' there is plenty to be learned on pages 208-214, some of it rather revolting. The authors are practiced information-gatherers & they also offer lots of remedies. That's to balance the scary parts. It helps to have a good index & plenty of references in the EndNotes, to which you can add by stuffing your copy with newspaper & magazine clippings.

This reader is careful now to heat water for ONLY two minutes in the microwave, and my eye will scan more carefully the labels of toilet cleaners. The fire-builder in the family will be quizzed about chances that our wood-burning stove is a potential threat for carbon monoxide poisoning. I do applaud the authors for their challenge to adults on page 252, to "TURN OFF THE TV & GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!"

The book is formatted to encourage you to THOROUGHLY read all sections. In a race for time to get this re-mailed to the studious one in Santa Cruz, I admit to some skimming. I'll doubtless give up and order another copy. Who of us doesn't have a hang-up or two, anyway?