How to Wrestle Free from an Alligator: 4. If its jaws are closed on something you want to remove (for example, a limb), tap or punch it on the snout.

Though it's being marketed as a humorous title--after all, it's unlikely you'll be called upon to land a plane, jump from a motorcycle to a moving car, or win a swordfight--the information contained in The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook is all quite sound. Authors Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht consulted numerous experts in their fields (they're cited at the end of the book) to discover how to survive various and sundry awful events. Parachute doesn't open? Your best bet for survival is to hook your arms through the straps of a fellow jumper's chute--and even then you're likely to dislocate both shoulders and break both legs. Car sinking in water? Open the window immediately to equalize pressure, then open the car door and swim to the surface. Buried in an avalanche? Spit on the snow--it will tell you which direction is really up. Then dig as fast as you can.

Each survival skill is explained in simple steps with helpful illustrations. Most stress the need to be prepared--both mentally and physically. For example, to escape from quicksand, you will need to lay a pole on the surface of the quicksand, flop on your back atop the pole, and pull your legs out one by one. No pole? No luck. "When walking in quicksand country, carry a stout pole--it will help you get out should you need to."

Hopefully you'll never need to know how to build a fire without matches, perform a tracheotomy, or treat a bullet wound. But in the words of survival evasion resistance escape instructor "Mountain" Mel Deweese, "You never know." --Sunny Delaney

Reviews from: Soldier of Fortune

USA Today

Nearly 180 pages of immediate-action drills for when everything goes to hell in a handbasket (SOF editors all keep a copy on their desk at all times). Succinct overviews and pity, practical courses of action from legion experts-in-their-fields, to fight Murphy at least to a draw. Aficionados in some fields might quibble over certain techniques, but for the amount of ground this compact volume covers in dealing with dozens and dozens of worst-case scenarios in common-sense fashion, it's well worth having. Odds are good you'll meet more than one of the situation during your life, and the time spent studying this volume may turn out to be some the best time you ever invest. If nothing else, it makes you think out your options beforehand, so you have a plan.

Those with deep-seated fears about killer bees, quicksand, mountain lions and sharks will enjoy The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht, a handy little book for the extremely prepared that is climbing the best-seller list. This is a no-nonsense, no-fooling around guide with straightforward information. But fear not: The authors have enough perspective to acknowledge the campy appeal of an armchair guide for the anxious. "We thought it would be funny to people," Borgenicht says. They were, he says, "inspired by pop culture as much as by paranoia most of the scenarios we talk about were a TV or a movie scene." Sharks, the authors say, scared both of them to pieces in childhood. Blame it on Jaws.