Rating: 
Summary: A Misleading Title and a Mediocre Book
Review: The subtitle of "Last Breath" calls it "Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance." This would lead one to believe that it is a series of factual stories about people who either died or had near death experiences. Alas, it is nothing of the sort. It is instead a series of "essays" in which the author merely imagines what it would be like to drown, fall from a great height, suffer heat stroke or hypothermia, etc. He liberally sprinkles each essay with medical data and historical anecdotes, but these hardly obscure the fact that there is no actual reporting going on here. The chapter on scurvey, for example, is particularly ludicrous. The author imagines a pleasure sailor who fears coming down with the disease because he forgot to pack any fruits or vegtables for a long distance voyage. Say what???There are dozens of excellent books out there that feature real life survival (and failure to survive) tales. "Eiger Dreams" by John Krakauer is one of the best that immediately comes to mind. Any of them would be preferable to this peculiar effort.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing work
Review: This book is one of the best I've read in a long time. To the first reviewer, he clearly didn't understand this book, as is shown by the following reviews. The author is brilliant, after the chapter on thirst I went to the fridge and drank two sodas right away. The writing is intelligent, you don't get the feeling he's trying to dumb it down to the lowest common denominator. There is just enough medical information to make you understand what is going on physically, but not overwhelm you. I highly, highly suggest you read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Book
Review: This book just blew me away. A wonderful blend of fact with realistic, fictional stories to make the points really come across. I couldn't put the book down until I finished it straight through the first time I read it. It's so well written that I've been able to enjoy rereading it several times.
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