Naked and locked out of hotel room?

How To Survive Anything is a 'visual guide to laughing in the face of adversity.' Picture: Lonely Planet

How To Survive Anything is a 'visual guide to laughing in the face of adversity.' Picture: Lonely Planet

Published May 23, 2015

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Washington - If you've made it this far, you already know it's a dangerous world out there. Ebola, terrorism, Twitter trolls - everyday is a battle against threats to your life. Wouldn't it be great to have a little guidance?

Finally, there's help for your inner action hero: How To Survive Anything (Lonely Planet). This helpful book, hilariously illustrated by Rob Dobi, provides a “visual guide to laughing in the face of adversity.”

Because you never know where the next threat will come from, How To Survive Anything casts a wide net. A very wide net. Here you'll find everything from “How to survive a nuclear explosion” to “How to survive a trip to the opera.”

Robin Barton, a contributor to How To Survive Anything and associate publisher of Lonely Planet, acknowledges that in some ways, our lives are very predictable.

“We know that there's a vanishingly small chance of perishing in a nuclear explosion (famous last words!) or beneath a failed parachute,” he says. “But we can be reasonably certain that at some point in our lives we're going to have to speak in public, meet our prospective in-laws for the first time or deal with a toddler's tantrum. So, we focus mainly on our everyday fears - dress-down Fridays, identity theft, getting the middle seat on a long-haul flight - that most people worry about, while also suggesting survival strategies for a few cataclysmically bad days ... just in case.”

Those bad days, by the way, include “How to survive a shipwreck” and “How to survive in a minefield.” All tremendously helpful, of course, but what are the odds of being able to consult this guide when, say, my elevator goes into a free fall?

“True,” Barton admits. “It's unlikely, unless you're in a very poorly maintained, multi-story book store.” The key, he says, is to study Rob Dobi's illustrations now, before the need arises. His clear, graphical advice can be “recalled in an instant - which is all you'll have in a free-falling elevator.”

Barton insists that each topic in “How to Survive Anything” has been vetted by experts in relevant fields. “This is first-hand advice, shaped by experience.” (This makes me wonder, particularly, about “How to survive a zombie attack.”)

He reminds me that John Locke - the 17th-century Enlightenment philosopher, not the character from Lost - said, “The only defence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.” Your Boy Scout troop leader was right: Be prepared.

“Not knowing that shaving cream can slow the spread of toxins from a jellyfish sting is no laughing matter!” Barton says.

Indeed.

Washington Post

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