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Last Breath: The Limits Of Adventure
by
Peter Stark
“Forget the edge of your seat. Last Breath takes you to the edge of your life, for a pulse-pounding glimpse into the Great Beyond. There are many ways to risk your life in the out-of-doors, and Stark has captured them in exquisite and harrowing detail.”
–JIM ROBBINS
Author of A Symphony in the Brain
An enthralling blend of adventure and science, Last Breath re-creates in ...more
–JIM ROBBINS
Author of A Symphony in the Brain
An enthralling blend of adventure and science, Last Breath re-creates in ...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
October 1st 2002
by Ballantine Books
(first published 2001)
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Valerie
rated it
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review of another edition
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Recommends it for:
Lindsay
Recommended to Valerie by:
Debbie
Shelves:
arewethereyet,
cypresslibrary
This book is filled with fascinating details about drowning, being smothered in avalanches, hypothermia etc. Goes well with any Into the Wild type reading.
This is a truly strange book. Neither fish nor fowl, it follows the journalistic tradition of In Cold Blood to relate a fictional story hung on a skeleton of nonfiction. Last Breath gave me a strange sense of dissonance as I turned its pages.
Each chapter explores the way our fragile human bodies fail before the awesome power of nature: drowning while white water kayaking, cooking internally while bike racing in high humidity, choking on lungs full of blood while suffering the bends. In...more
Each chapter explores the way our fragile human bodies fail before the awesome power of nature: drowning while white water kayaking, cooking internally while bike racing in high humidity, choking on lungs full of blood while suffering the bends. In...more
Horrible yet riveting- We listened to this book on tape while on a road trip, it may have a different feel if read but it was a series of 6-7 high adventure stories. In each one "something went horribly wrong" causing death or near death to one of the participants. Not just exciting stories about hypothermia, drowning, high altitude sickness, heat stroke, etc. but a scientific explanation of what happens to a human in these situations from their emotional state down to their cellular s...more
Like snowboarding, kayaking, or deep sea diving? Many people like to challenge themselves outdoors, and most make it back home alive and well. In Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance, author Peter Stark describes in fascinating detail the many ways people die as a result of spending too much time in harsh environments. He discusses the causes and sometimes cures of mountain sickness, hypothermia, dehydration, suffocation, blunt trauma (falling), and many others. A pag...more
Everyone knows that if left out in cold temperatures for too long, people die. But specifically how do people die of cold. Specifically what happens to the circulatory system, or a cellular level, even, that makes people die of cold? This book that attempts to answer that question and many like it. It's a collection of stories about the many ways that people die in the wilderness. There's freezing, drowning, falling, avalanche, malaria, heatstroke, dehydration, HACE/HAPE, animal attack, scu...more
Last Breath is a collection of stories that describe, in extremely vivid detail, just what happens when people die horrible wilderness deaths. Stark begins each chapter by spinning a "what if" tale about a character who finds him or herself in a deadly situation (such as hypothermia, cerebral malaria, heat stroke, drowning, etc.) and, as he builds the narrative, he splices in actual historical instances of this death in action as well as medical explanations of what is happening. Altho...more
This was a rather morbid read, but I found each chapter, about a different horrific way to die, fascinating. Rather than real stories, these were composite tales, which kind of lessened the effect, but I liked the CSI-esque approach to discussing what actually happens to your body when you're dehydrated, suffering from hypothermia, scurvy or malaria, drowning, an avalanche victim. It helps me feel prepared, just in case, you know, I do become daring.
This was part scientific journal and part Indiana Jones. I loved it. I have not read any other like this. Multiple stories in a book-I like that so my add nature doesn't get bored. Some were actual accounts of what happened to people and some were what physically could happened to people in different scenarios-all adventure based.
FASCINATING look at what the body goes through when pushed to the limits in various scenarios...however, I do not suggest reading how you die by hypothermia, avalanche, or heat stroke just before going to sleep. But for a "Death Fixated" chick like me, it was very informative & interesting! ;-)
This was a great follow up book to "Deep Survival". The story of those who don't survive and how they die from a scientific perspective... Drowning, falling, freezing, being stung by the deadly Australian Box Jelly Fish etc..these tales certainly make me more cautious about high adventure sports.
This was a mixed bag. I expected it to be all non-fiction. Instead it was fictionalized stories of adventurers facing a life threatening event. Then it went through all the science related to what their body was experiencing. On one hand it was more interesting than I expected---on the other hand the fictionalized parts were not particularly well done.
Julie
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
everyone
Recommended to Julie by:
an instructor
I absolutely love this book! This is for anyone who loves short stories and excitement. This book is about people who do extreme sports and what happens to their bodies both emotionally and physiologically, right down to the cellular level. You need not be in the medical field to understand this book, it is written in simplistic terms. Every chapter is a new story. Everything from what your body experiences by being crushed by an avalanche, to heat stroke, dehydration, drowning, and so on....more
Interesting book. I learned quite a bit.
Really fun and harrowing tails of human survival instinct
Enjoyable. A bit like Jon Krakauer meets a thousand ways to die. The physiology of the medical emergency was interesting, but I didn't take to the dramatic presentation.
Sarah
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
hikers, bikers, avid outdoorsmen/women
I don't know about you, but I have an active imagination. I am always worried about running into Ted Bundy on the hiking path when I am hiking alone, of getting lost and suffering from hypothermia or dying of hypoxia. This book covers all those this and more...well, not the part of Ted Bundy...but everything else.
It details all the physiological events your body goes through before death. I couldn't stop reading it. If you are into the outdoors at all, you should read this book...more
It details all the physiological events your body goes through before death. I couldn't stop reading it. If you are into the outdoors at all, you should read this book...more
Amazing nonfiction book. It really appealed to me because of my interest in extreme sports and pushing my limits. This was a more challenging read, just because it's entirely scientific. The author does an amazing job of going into incredible detail on medical, scientific conditions. It's textbook material - but described so much more effectivly than a textbook, in that they make it so interesting that you'll remember a lot of it.
Finished this book. I thought it started out well but the story lines got weaker as the book went on.
It tells the tales of people who survive and do not survive against nature. But it tells the story from a perspective of how the their physiology is changing/struggling during the event.
The author does an amazing job of telling a great story of epic and a medical case study.
Good for anyone who likes adventure.
It tells the tales of people who survive and do not survive against nature. But it tells the story from a perspective of how the their physiology is changing/struggling during the event.
The author does an amazing job of telling a great story of epic and a medical case study.
Good for anyone who likes adventure.
Stories of people who got lucky and some who did not. Extreme sport enthuiasts discusses their near death experiences, or the narrator speaks about the possible experiences of the dead. Technical medical knowledge written in layman's terms. Interesting for non-fiction enthuiasts of medical, sports and adventures to read, and will appeal to olders teens a adults
While a bit gruesome, this book was still good. Don't read this if you have friends and family who do dangerous things AND you remember everything you read. I have a crazy brother who does some of these things, but thankfully I don't remember every detail of the freezing to death chapter, so I won't be scared for him. Interesting for sure.
Mandi
added it
When I saw this book, I knew I had to get it. I like Peter's narration and flow of Last Breath. I felt like I was with the character in the drowning chapter and got so cold reading hypothermia chapter--I felt like it was me in the woods. If you like adventure and science, I recommend. I learned some good from this book. Read this summer.
Although the concept sounds morbid, this is a captivating book . . . through short stories about various outdoor adventures, the author describes the physiological changes that take place in the body when experiencing hypothermia, drowning, HAPE, etc. It really is an interesting book - and a quick read.
ma summer reading bk.
The true physiology behind life threatening situations. A must for anyone who likes living on the adventurous edge.
inspriration to get out and push the limits.
Exciting and educational...
i couldn't stop
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