# First-hand accounts of people surviving difficult situations **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 14, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889 "2007-01-14T01:17:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/1 "2007-01-14T01:17:44Z")
I’m looking for some books, web sites, whatever, that give first-hand accounts of people surviving difficult situations. Mountain climbing and hiking accounts seem to be pretty popular, so I would like to limit this thread to other types of situations. For example, the hostages held in Iran after the revolution, or people that experienced slavery (historical or contemporary), etc. Other than the no moutain climbers, just about anything is game. Any suggestions? ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/2 "2007-01-14T01:21:21Z")
[QUOTE=liirogue] I’m looking for some books, web sites, whatever, that give first-hand accounts of people surviving difficult situations. Mountain climbing and hiking accounts seem to be pretty popular, so I would like to limit this thread to other types of situations. For example, the hostages held in Iran after the revolution, or people that experienced slavery (historical or contemporary), etc. Other than the no moutain climbers, just about anything is game. Any suggestions? [/QUOTE] Well you said anything is game, but do they have to be real situations? _World War Z_ is a book with nothing but first hand accounts of people surviving a world wide zombie epidemic. I just finished it and it was incredibly good. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/3 "2007-01-14T01:45:06Z")
**Skeletons on the Zahara** by Dean King is based on contemporary sources and tells what happened to some American sailors shipwrecked off the coast of Africa in the 1800’s and sold into slavery. Discovery Channel (or one of those) did a documentary on it, but it lacked something. Maybe because they couldn’t find emaciated actors to play the roles. Hard to believe people are starving when they’re so well muscled, and that their skin is flaking off when, well, it’s not. Where’s the FX budget? 🙂 I’d also recommend **Batavia’s Graveyard** by Michael Dash – survival on a Dutch sailing vessel in the 1600’s, and survival again after the shipwreck, and more survival involving a psychopathic murderer who took charge of the survivors. Good stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/4 "2007-01-14T01:46:07Z")
Well, it does involve a mountain, but not a climber. There’s a video recording a guy from a Seattle TV station made, after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. His name was David Crockett. I’ve seen the video and heard the recording he made, as he walked away from the ash cloud, but I can’t find it online. The following is a link to a Time magazine article that mentions him. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924152,00.html](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924152,00.html) Really spooky. “I honestly think I’m dead” ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/5 "2007-01-14T02:05:44Z")
Eight Bullets (Claudia Brenner): By a lesbian who was shot by a man while camping. Her lover was killed. She had to hike miles while severely wounded to get to the road. Strange Piece of Paradise (Terri Jentz): Run over with a jeep and then hacked with an axe by a man while camping. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/6 "2007-01-14T14:53:48Z")
17th and 18th-C. [URL=http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa020920a.htmIndian captivity narratives – recounting violence, warfare, disease, and hunger, plus the anguish of sexual exploitation, loneliness and bereavement (typically of one’s family, slaughtered in the Indian raid resulting in the narrator’s captivity), foreign language immersion and culture shock – with some of these hardships to be revisited when the narrator is recaptured by (or escapes to) a white settlement, possibly many years after she was lost to the Indians… ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/7 "2007-01-14T15:19:08Z")
The last 10-15 years were an Oprah-induced slog of “my shitty childhood” memoirs, all of which I would not recommend to the OP. As for great adventure stories, I will recommend [The Long Walk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%82awomir_Rawicz) by Slavomir Rawicz, a young Polish officer sent by the Soviets to Siberia, from which he and his companions walked all the way to India. And then there’s [Papillon & Banco](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Charriere). One of the reasons the books are better than the movie is that the message that, despite the unjustness of his treatment, it made him a better person and ultimately gained him a better life than if he’d stayed in Paris. (although one advantage the movie does offer is Mel from _Alice_ hitting on Will Robinson from _Lost in Space_) The downside of both these adventure stories is that there’s a pretty good chance they’re made up. But that’s just one of the fact of life: when old men write their memoirs, they lie. Take comfort from that, for should you write yours, you shall too. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/8 "2007-01-14T15:36:11Z")
The Wreck of the Hesperus section in Julian Barnes’s [A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters](http://www.amazon.com/History-World-10-2-Chapters/dp/0679731377/sr=8-1/qid=1168787895/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-3338279-9362032?ie=UTF8&s=books). Bunch of dudes on a ship that went down, end up on a raft, then eat each other. Ghastly business. Similarly, [Alive](http://www.amazon.com/Alive-Story-Andes-Survivors-Nonfiction/dp/038000321X/sr=1-1/qid=1168788047/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-3338279-9362032?ie=UTF8&s=books) (though it’s on a mountain, but they’re not mountaineers). [Captain Bligh’s Portable Nightmare](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/1841150789/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/105-3338279-9362032?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books) which, despite the awful review on Amazon, I thought was very good, and the story of how Bligh managed to keep his crew alive after having been set adrift in a rowing boat, navigating more than 4,000 miles from memory, and even definitively mapping the areas he passed before arriving in port safely, is jaw-dropping, and gives you a very different view of a man usually classed as a villain. Finally, the most incredible of all, [Endurance: Ernest Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage](http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Incredible-Alfred-Lansing/dp/B000BZ9A7S/sr=1-1/qid=1168788308/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-3338279-9362032?ie=UTF8&s=books) is nothing less than mindblowing: on the way to the south pole, Shackleton’s ship gets locked in Antarctic ice, and he and an Irish crew member, Tom Crean set out alone, floating on ice, battered by storms, attacked by killer whales, get a boat and cross the South Atlantic to South Georgia, cross a range of at-the-time uncharted mountains, get help, return, and save everyone, and lived to tell the tale. The is without a shadow of a doubt the most astonishing story of endurance and perseverance I think I have ever heard of. Those men were hard as fucking _nails_. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/9 "2007-01-14T15:37:43Z")
\*\*Alive \*\* by Piers Paul Reid, about the plane crash in the Andes. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/10 "2007-01-14T15:38:28Z")
Try Victor Frankl’s _Man’s Search for Meaning_, which apart from divining a wonderful philosophy from dire circumstances, has some really fine writing. \*Another time we were at work in a trench. The dawn was grey around us; grey was the sky above; grey the snow in the pale light of dawn; grey the rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and grey their faces. \* ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/11 "2007-01-14T16:41:36Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] The Wreck of the Hesperus [/QUOTE] Oops, got muddled up by memories of the Muppets singing _Lydia the Tattooed Lady_. I meant [The Raft of the Medusa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/12 "2007-01-14T17:37:34Z")
[QUOTE=liirogue] I’m looking for some books, web sites, whatever, that give first-hand accounts of people surviving difficult situations. [/QUOTE] _Reader’s Digest_ features such stories regularly, or used to – look for anything subtitled “Drama in Real Life.” ---
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/13 "2007-01-14T18:23:20Z")
[Winter Time: Memoirs of a German Sinto [Gypsy] who Survived Auschwitz](http://www.amazon.com/Winter-Time-Memoirs-Survived-Auschwitz/dp/1902806387) Walter Winter was conscripted into the German navy in World War 2, then discharged on racial grounds. Shortly afterwards, he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later sent to Ravensbrūck just prior to the extermination of the Gypsy camp in August 1944 - ([Zigeunernacht](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=201843)). From Ravensbrūck, he was sent on to Sachsenhausen. At the latter stages of the war, he was released and re-conscripted in order to fight the Russians. It’s an absolutely amazing story and a fantastic book. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/14 "2007-01-14T19:55:51Z")
A tad obscure, but you might find **I was Chaplain on the _Franklin_** by [Joseph O’Callahan](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1176873/posts)\* worth a look. The _Franklin_ was the most heavily damaged US Navy ship to survive during WWII, and Father O’Callahan’s activities in saving the ship earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. \*Disclaimer: I don’t normally hang out at FReeper, but it seemed to have the best biography. Regard the rest of the page at your peril. ---
**Author:** ![Scruloose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Scruloose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruloose)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/15 "2007-01-14T20:45:16Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Finally, the most incredible of all, [Endurance: Ernest Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage](http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Incredible-Alfred-Lansing/dp/B000BZ9A7S/sr=1-1/qid=1168788308/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-3338279-9362032?ie=UTF8&s=books) is nothing less than mindblowing: on the way to the south pole, Shackleton’s ship gets locked in Antarctic ice, and he and an Irish crew member, Tom Crean set out alone, floating on ice, battered by storms, attacked by killer whales, get a boat and cross the South Atlantic to South Georgia, cross a range of at-the-time uncharted mountains, get help, return, and save everyone, and lived to tell the tale. The is without a shadow of a doubt the most astonishing story of endurance and perseverance I think I have ever heard of. Those men were hard as fucking _nails_. [/QUOTE] Seconded. Shackleton’s expedition is the most amazing tale of survival ever told. There are many books available on the subject; some written by those who were there. Incredibly, there are pictures and movies available, which were taken during that voyage. ---
**Author:** ![Sparrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sparrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparrow)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/16 "2007-01-14T20:47:49Z")
“And I Alone Survived” by Lauren Elder. She was the only survivor of a light plane that crashed in the Rockies, high up on the side of a mountain. She had broken bones and other serious injuries but hiked out and down the mountain. ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/17 "2007-01-14T21:16:05Z")
Political prisoner accounts: [[URL=[http://www.amazon.com/Prisonniere-Twenty-Years-Desert-Gaol/dp/B000KL3F42/sr=1-3/qid=1168809071/ref=sr\_1\_3/002-5552520-3815234?ie=UTF8&s=books](http://www.amazon.com/Prisonniere-Twenty-Years-Desert-Gaol/dp/B000KL3F42/sr=1-3/qid=1168809071/ref=sr_1_3/002-5552520-3815234?ie=UTF8&s=books)]La Prisonniere - 20 years in a desert jail]([http://www.amazon.com/Balzac-Little-Chinese-Seamstress-Novel/dp/0385722206/sr=8-1/qid=1168808976/ref=pd\_bbs\_1/002-5552520-3815234?ie=UTF8&s=booksBalzac](http://www.amazon.com/Balzac-Little-Chinese-Seamstress-Novel/dp/0385722206/sr=8-1/qid=1168808976/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5552520-3815234?ie=UTF8&s=booksBalzac) and the Little Chinese Seamstress[/URL) Anything by Primo Levi. ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/18 "2007-01-14T21:23:45Z")
Well, what the hell happened there? Serves me right for not previewing. Let’s try again. Political prisoner accounts: [Stolen Lives - 20 years in a desert jail](http://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Lives-Twenty-Desert-Paperback/dp/B000FVHJDU/sr=1-2/qid=1168809404/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/002-5552520-3815234?ie=UTF8&s=books) - better link anyway, the other one is out of print. [Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress](http://www.amazon.com/Balzac-Little-Chinese-Seamstress-Novel/dp/0385722206/ref=pd_rhf_p_2/002-5552520-3815234) Anything by Primo Levi. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/19 "2007-01-14T21:28:48Z")
_[Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea](http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780618257324&itm=1)_ by Steven Callahan. Callahan was six days out from the Canary Islands when his sloop sank. He wound up in an inflatable raft with almost no food or water. He spent the next two and a half months adrift in that raft, living mostly on fish caught with a broken spear from his spear gun and water from a solar still. The book is a detailed first-hand account of his experience. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889/20 "2007-01-14T21:52:09Z")
[http://www.amazon.com/No-Surrender-Thirty-Year-Bluejacket-Books/dp/1557506639/sr=8-1/qid=1168811339/ref=pd\_bbs\_sr\_1/002-5813655-7511268?ie=UTF8&s=books](http://www.amazon.com/No-Surrender-Thirty-Year-Bluejacket-Books/dp/1557506639/sr=8-1/qid=1168811339/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-5813655-7511268?ie=UTF8&s=books) I highly recommend this book written by the Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda, who surrendered nearly 30 years after the second World War. The book is a firsthand acccount about his life, and details how he survived in the Philippine jungle. Hiroo’s story is really uplifting because of his positive attitude. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-hand-accounts-of-people-surviving-difficult-situations/387889.md?page=2)