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Practical Doomsday: A User's Guide to the End of the World
Disasters happen. Be prepared. Here’s how.
As a leading security engineer, Michal Zalewski has spent his career methodically anticipating and planning for cyberattacks. In Practical Doomsday, Zalewski applies the same thoughtful, rational approach to preparing for disasters of all kinds. By sharing his research, advice, and a healthy dose of common sense, he’ll help you rest easy knowing you have a plan for the worst—even if the worst never comes.
The book outlines a level-headed model for evaluating risks, one that weighs the probability of scenarios against the cost of preparing for them. You’ll learn to apply that model to the whole spectrum of potential crises, from personal hardships like job loss or a kitchen fire, to large-scale natural disasters and industrial accidents, to recurring pop-culture fears like all-out nuclear war. You’ll then explore how basic lifestyle adjustments, such as maintaining a robust rainy-day fund, protecting yourself online, and fostering good relationships with your neighbors, can boost your readiness for a wide range of situations. You’ll also take a no-nonsense look at the supplies and equipment essential to surviving sudden catastrophes, like prolonged power outages or devastating storms, and examine the merits and legal implications of different self-defense strategies.
You’ll
Disasters happen, but they don’t have to dominate your life. Practical Doomsday will help you plan ahead, so you can stop worrying about what tomorrow may bring and start enjoying your life today.
As a leading security engineer, Michal Zalewski has spent his career methodically anticipating and planning for cyberattacks. In Practical Doomsday, Zalewski applies the same thoughtful, rational approach to preparing for disasters of all kinds. By sharing his research, advice, and a healthy dose of common sense, he’ll help you rest easy knowing you have a plan for the worst—even if the worst never comes.
The book outlines a level-headed model for evaluating risks, one that weighs the probability of scenarios against the cost of preparing for them. You’ll learn to apply that model to the whole spectrum of potential crises, from personal hardships like job loss or a kitchen fire, to large-scale natural disasters and industrial accidents, to recurring pop-culture fears like all-out nuclear war. You’ll then explore how basic lifestyle adjustments, such as maintaining a robust rainy-day fund, protecting yourself online, and fostering good relationships with your neighbors, can boost your readiness for a wide range of situations. You’ll also take a no-nonsense look at the supplies and equipment essential to surviving sudden catastrophes, like prolonged power outages or devastating storms, and examine the merits and legal implications of different self-defense strategies.
You’ll
Disasters happen, but they don’t have to dominate your life. Practical Doomsday will help you plan ahead, so you can stop worrying about what tomorrow may bring and start enjoying your life today.
250 pages, Paperback
Published January 11, 2022
68 people are currently reading
427 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 8, 2022
I've reached out for PD primarily because previous lcamtuf's books were awesome. I knew this one is about something completely different (than computer security), but I've found the topic interesting enough.
Just to be clear - it's not a book for some crazy preppers, but for people who like to manage the risks. Including so-called black swans - highly unlikely events with severe consequences. If I had to compare PD to some other book, it'd be Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". Of course the perspective there was different (purely economical), but the general mindset is the same: don't act like a sheep who follows the flock, assess the risks, make sure you have plan B, C, D, at least where it's reasonably justified.
The book is moderately detailed. I'd say that the author puts width over depth. That's actually OK, because it provides you a reasonable start, w/o boring you to death with details you can read up on whenever it fits you. There are elements of this book that are more specific to US (& American culture), but it's also relevant for EU people.
Good stuff. 4-4.2 stars. It didn't rock my world, but there are chapters EVERYONE should read (to increase individual awareness).
Just to be clear - it's not a book for some crazy preppers, but for people who like to manage the risks. Including so-called black swans - highly unlikely events with severe consequences. If I had to compare PD to some other book, it'd be Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". Of course the perspective there was different (purely economical), but the general mindset is the same: don't act like a sheep who follows the flock, assess the risks, make sure you have plan B, C, D, at least where it's reasonably justified.
The book is moderately detailed. I'd say that the author puts width over depth. That's actually OK, because it provides you a reasonable start, w/o boring you to death with details you can read up on whenever it fits you. There are elements of this book that are more specific to US (& American culture), but it's also relevant for EU people.
Good stuff. 4-4.2 stars. It didn't rock my world, but there are chapters EVERYONE should read (to increase individual awareness).
October 30, 2022
I likely would not have read this book if it was released under a different publisher, but I’m a fan of No Starch, so I went for it. Since I haven’t read much prepper literature, I can’t draw an honest comparison, but I’d say the following things set this book apart: realistically walking through popular doomsday situations, preaching the significance of community support (counter to the rugged individualism touted by most preppers), and a rational approach to gear.
The entire chapter on money felt a bit out of place, though I did find it interesting and informative.
I’d say the most important thing I got out of this read was doing risk management for your daily life, and asking “what would happen if I could no longer perform this task the usual way?” in order to figure out your preparation priorities. Realistically, this means having money saved up.
Would I recommend this book to most people? Probably not. But I would 100% recommend it to anyone who is even remotely considering prepping, as the author really helps bring things into perspective, maintains a very rational approach, and makes some very solid recommendations on what’s worth stocking.
The entire chapter on money felt a bit out of place, though I did find it interesting and informative.
I’d say the most important thing I got out of this read was doing risk management for your daily life, and asking “what would happen if I could no longer perform this task the usual way?” in order to figure out your preparation priorities. Realistically, this means having money saved up.
Would I recommend this book to most people? Probably not. But I would 100% recommend it to anyone who is even remotely considering prepping, as the author really helps bring things into perspective, maintains a very rational approach, and makes some very solid recommendations on what’s worth stocking.
March 12, 2022
A perspective changing book. It throws away 90% of prepper supersitition and focuses on pragmatic, useful, tangible advice instead. I liked how it emphasizes risk vs cost analysis, and looking at it from a rational perspective.
I love the author's optimistic tone which I find more realistic and down-to-earth than others who need to justify their $50K investment on prepping for some Hollywood-caliber disaster that'll most likely never happen in their lifetime.
The planning chapter is so good that it can actually be applied to software security too. Great book overall.
As a suggestion, I'd love to have summary bullet points at the end of a chapter to help me refresh what I've just learned.
I love the author's optimistic tone which I find more realistic and down-to-earth than others who need to justify their $50K investment on prepping for some Hollywood-caliber disaster that'll most likely never happen in their lifetime.
The planning chapter is so good that it can actually be applied to software security too. Great book overall.
As a suggestion, I'd love to have summary bullet points at the end of a chapter to help me refresh what I've just learned.
October 1, 2022
A practical guide to mitigate risks of disasters you are likely to face.
Went in expecting a zombie book (despite the title), came out having a handbook for risk management in everyday life. Would recommend to anyone looking to de-risk their lives to potentially disastrous life events.
Went in expecting a zombie book (despite the title), came out having a handbook for risk management in everyday life. Would recommend to anyone looking to de-risk their lives to potentially disastrous life events.
September 11, 2022
I think this book does a really good job of talking about the various realistic scenarios for "doomsday" and how to prepare for it without falling into the tropes of a being a prepper book. I have been a fan of Michal Zalewski's writing ever since he wrote "Silence on the Wire" and to some extent forever changed how I thought about computer security. He has a great way to make computing and security concepts approachable and actionable. His "Tangled Web" book is also a great resource for web security. So, I had this book on pre-order, as one does :)
The book is divided into four parts, each one focused on coping with some kind of issue that might arise in doomsday scenario.
First is risk and risk assessment - any kind of risk that a person may experience in individual situations (like losing a job, bad health) or large scale but localized problems (like hurricane or closing a factory), or global catastrophes (it's notable that I read this during COVID pandemic, albeit towards the waning days after the vaccines were somewhat widely available in the US). The point of this section is to assess a realistic possibility of these happening to you. Often people overestimate the large and recent incidents like hurricanes and pandemic and miss the immediate risks like losing a job and not having enough saved up to find a new one. A lot of these depends on where you live, like if you live in Minnesota you don't need to prepare for Hurricane like you would if you lived in Louisiana, or Florida. Instead you prepare for extreme cold and wind, and stupid mosquitoes in summer. However, wherever you live, you could encounter the same type of individual calamity when it comes to something like an injury from a power tool.
The second part is developing a life style that incorporates preparation for likely problems. This part is quite interesting and wide ranging: like having a rainy day funds to cope with issues, managing career, behaving safely and digital and physical safety, watching one's health, engaging with the community, and making a plan (including making a will). In Chapter 7, "Safeguarding Your Savings" Zalewski covers a fairly good way to save your money with various financial instruments. This is one case where I diverge slightly from Zalewski, although I do agree that for personal investments, crypto isn't for everyone and neither is it for some kind of predictable short term "nestegg." There are lot of better instruments like Vanguard funds and ETFs of similar ilk that can get you the benefits. Usually anything that's too good to be true like "cryptocurrencies at gas station pumps" are just that.
Part 3 is on emergency planning at a household level. This part is something I intend to apply on my own lifestyle over time. It's annual exercise for families living in Florida, Texas for hurricane season. Similarly, earthquake and wildfire prep in California and to some extent Pacific Northwest is becoming increasingly important.
Part 4 covers personal defense. Zalewski goes into legal restrictions on self-defense which are usually not covered by most books on the topic, so it's nice to see this covered in this book. Not a lot of actionable tasks here that you cannot get from a local martial arts or self defense course.
I think this is a really well structured book with a lot of actionable advice for a lot of people. It's a good read and presents a lot of ideas cohesively.
(I had forgotten a lot of what I read in January and couldn't find my notes, so I read https://www.computingreviews.com/revi... for a refresher before writing this review and skimming the book again)
The book is divided into four parts, each one focused on coping with some kind of issue that might arise in doomsday scenario.
First is risk and risk assessment - any kind of risk that a person may experience in individual situations (like losing a job, bad health) or large scale but localized problems (like hurricane or closing a factory), or global catastrophes (it's notable that I read this during COVID pandemic, albeit towards the waning days after the vaccines were somewhat widely available in the US). The point of this section is to assess a realistic possibility of these happening to you. Often people overestimate the large and recent incidents like hurricanes and pandemic and miss the immediate risks like losing a job and not having enough saved up to find a new one. A lot of these depends on where you live, like if you live in Minnesota you don't need to prepare for Hurricane like you would if you lived in Louisiana, or Florida. Instead you prepare for extreme cold and wind, and stupid mosquitoes in summer. However, wherever you live, you could encounter the same type of individual calamity when it comes to something like an injury from a power tool.
The second part is developing a life style that incorporates preparation for likely problems. This part is quite interesting and wide ranging: like having a rainy day funds to cope with issues, managing career, behaving safely and digital and physical safety, watching one's health, engaging with the community, and making a plan (including making a will). In Chapter 7, "Safeguarding Your Savings" Zalewski covers a fairly good way to save your money with various financial instruments. This is one case where I diverge slightly from Zalewski, although I do agree that for personal investments, crypto isn't for everyone and neither is it for some kind of predictable short term "nestegg." There are lot of better instruments like Vanguard funds and ETFs of similar ilk that can get you the benefits. Usually anything that's too good to be true like "cryptocurrencies at gas station pumps" are just that.
Part 3 is on emergency planning at a household level. This part is something I intend to apply on my own lifestyle over time. It's annual exercise for families living in Florida, Texas for hurricane season. Similarly, earthquake and wildfire prep in California and to some extent Pacific Northwest is becoming increasingly important.
Part 4 covers personal defense. Zalewski goes into legal restrictions on self-defense which are usually not covered by most books on the topic, so it's nice to see this covered in this book. Not a lot of actionable tasks here that you cannot get from a local martial arts or self defense course.
I think this is a really well structured book with a lot of actionable advice for a lot of people. It's a good read and presents a lot of ideas cohesively.
(I had forgotten a lot of what I read in January and couldn't find my notes, so I read https://www.computingreviews.com/revi... for a refresher before writing this review and skimming the book again)
January 4, 2022
As a lightweight, New Year's read I've picked up "Practical Doomsday: A Sensible Field Guide to Surviving Disasters". Regardless of what you think, I'm not paranoiac (at least not very much). I recognize its author, [Michał Zalewski](https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/) from Polish and international security community as well established and recognized security expert.
This book is what Michal writes about it at one point in the book - an optimistic guide through surviving disasters (quoting from memory). It provides very common sense and down to earth approach to think about the risks and planning to mitigate it from practical point of view, without moving to the mountains and digging a bunker.
I liked its first part much more. In first part Michal introduces a concept and model of risk in everyday lives and provides very balanced approach to it, how to think and plan for the risks. The second part is more practical, but also strongly connected with the United States reality where Michal lives right now.
It is a short read. It won't give you exact, step by step guide to survive a disaster, but it will also debunk some myths surrounding preppers community and preppers approach. I've picked from it some ideas to implement this year and also started to work on my "risk register" in a written form.
Not something you have to read in your life, but if you haven't thought about it yet or you need a bit of a push to think about how to prepare for some bumps in the road, it might be a good read. Be aware of the rabbit hole down the road.
This book is what Michal writes about it at one point in the book - an optimistic guide through surviving disasters (quoting from memory). It provides very common sense and down to earth approach to think about the risks and planning to mitigate it from practical point of view, without moving to the mountains and digging a bunker.
I liked its first part much more. In first part Michal introduces a concept and model of risk in everyday lives and provides very balanced approach to it, how to think and plan for the risks. The second part is more practical, but also strongly connected with the United States reality where Michal lives right now.
It is a short read. It won't give you exact, step by step guide to survive a disaster, but it will also debunk some myths surrounding preppers community and preppers approach. I've picked from it some ideas to implement this year and also started to work on my "risk register" in a written form.
Not something you have to read in your life, but if you haven't thought about it yet or you need a bit of a push to think about how to prepare for some bumps in the road, it might be a good read. Be aware of the rabbit hole down the road.
March 7, 2025
As the title would suggest, this is a very practical guide to preparedness for things that can go wrong in life. The focus is on more probable events, which is generally good, but also means a good portion of the book is dedicated to financial advice that is better explored elsewhere.
January 14, 2022
Decent book on disaster preparedness.
August 8, 2022
This book is a well-researched guide to disaster preparedness. While some preppers go overboard in trying to be prepared for the worst possible situations, this book takes a risk management approach which focuses on looking at both the impact of a potential event and the probability of it occurring. For example, it is wiser to focus your preparedness efforts on events that are likely to happen (e.g. temporary power outages, extreme weather events, evacuations, etc.) rather than events that are unlikely to happen (e.g. civil war, economic collapse, zombie apocalypse, etc.).
This book is pretty comprehensive, covering;
- financial needs
- water
- food
- fuel
- sanitation
- evacuation gear
- self-defense
and more. For each category, the author provides recommendations on what a typical family would need to handle a multi-day outage or disruption.
I found this to be really practical book and would recommend this to anyone who is interested in preparing their household to handle basic emergency situations.
This book is pretty comprehensive, covering;
- financial needs
- water
- food
- fuel
- sanitation
- evacuation gear
- self-defense
and more. For each category, the author provides recommendations on what a typical family would need to handle a multi-day outage or disruption.
I found this to be really practical book and would recommend this to anyone who is interested in preparing their household to handle basic emergency situations.
March 10, 2023
This tweet sums it up https://twitter.com/lcamtuf/status/16...
"These are events that re likely happen within our lifetimes, but are rare enough to catch us off guard. A major theme in my book isn't that the end is nigh or that you need to gear up and fight for your life. It's just that there are steps you can take to sleep well at night."
"These are events that re likely happen within our lifetimes, but are rare enough to catch us off guard. A major theme in my book isn't that the end is nigh or that you need to gear up and fight for your life. It's just that there are steps you can take to sleep well at night."
February 17, 2024
Book exceeded my expectations by emphasizing the importance of frugality in disaster preparedness, building a financial cushion, and wisely allocating our scarce resources. Although I strongly disagree with the author's opinion that BTC shouldn't be a part of rainy day fund, this minor difference in opinion
March 9, 2022
Mocna USA-centryczne, ale lcamtuf zawsze spoko i są polskie akcenty. Kilka ciekawych rzeczy - glownie o przydatności sieci kontaktów i przysług jako waluty i zabezpieczenia. W pewnych okolicznościach moze byc bezcenna, nie kasuje po przeczytaniu
April 17, 2022
An overall optimistic and practical guide that encompasses what you need to consider when preparing for the unexpected.
January 1, 2024
Solid advice, although methinks he missed the mark a bit on 1) how bad COVID was, and 2) how bad the effects of global warming will be
May 31, 2024
A lot of vague discussions. I expected it to be more of a guidance than a verbose story.
August 4, 2025
It's a prepper book
June 23, 2024
Idk, only common sense obvious stuff except parts absolutely irrelevant in Europe.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews