Outwit, Outplay, and... Out-read!
Have you found yourself just trying to survive during this off-season between Survivor 50 and 51? Look no further for all the fixins'! I'm taking my future role as Sole Survivor very seriously. That means I did the heavy lifting and built the ultimate reading list for fans of the tribe.
The Tribe Has Spoken
Books written by the contestants & host
Escape! by Stephen Fishbach
A propulsive debut novel following a has-been reality TV star and a disgraced producer who get one last shot at redemption on a show set on a remote island, only to discover that the plot twists are beyond what they ever imagined. Everyone gets the story arc they deserve.
Nice Girls Don't Win by Parvarti Shallow
A bold, eye-opening memoir about survival, trauma, and healing from one of reality television's most talked-about stars.
Stranded Series by Jeff Probst
A New York Times Bestseller* From the Emmy-Award winning host of Survivor , Jeff Probst, with Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life co-author, Chris Tebbetts, comes a youth adventure series where a family vacation becomes a game of survival! It was supposed to be a vacation--and a chance to get to know each other better.
The Tribe and I have Spoken by Rob Cesternino
The ultimate gift for Survivor fans from the former contestant turned host of the #1 Survivor fan podcast Rob Has a Podcast-- a fun, illustrated book of essays that details the strategy, characters, and big moments that have created one of the most passionate fandoms there is.
Outwit, Outplay, Outlast
Sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative fiction
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.
This is the twelfth expedition.
Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers--they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life-forms that surpass understanding--but it's the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution.(The New York Times) This is the way the world ends...for the last time.
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
A post-apocalyptic novel set in a remote northern First Nations community. As their tenuous links to the southern world wink out, Evan and his community learn to rely again on the old ways to survive. But a wendigo southerner arrives to threaten everything.
The Martian by Andy Weir
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive--and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills--and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit--he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy
In Benjamin Percy's new thriller, a post-apocalyptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark saga, a super flu and nuclear fallout have made a husk of the world we know. A few humans carry on, living in outposts such as the Sanctuary-the remains of St. Louis - a shielded community that owes its survival to its militant defense and fear-mongering leaders.
The Fire Represents Your Life
Survival stories rooted in horror
The Ruins by Scott Smith
Four American friends on vacation in Mexico meet a German tourist who asks for their help in finding his younger brother, who was last seen with his girlfriend near mysterious ruins. Smith's blockbuster novel is now adapted to film by Paramount Pictures, scheduled for theatrical release on April 4.
The Ritual by Adam Nevill
A horror debut by one of Britain's most celebrated up-and-coming writers, in which four friends get lost in a forest in Sweden, to find their lives are in mortal peril... as something evil lurks.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
From international bestseller Stephen King, a classic story that engages our emotions on the most primal level, a fairy tale grimmer than Grimm but aglow with a girl's indomitable spirit. What if the woods were full of them?
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Written with the narrative tension of The Road and the exquisite terror of classic Stephen King, Bird Box is a propulsive, edge-of-your-seat horror thriller, set in an apocalyptic near-future world—a masterpiece of suspense from the brilliantly imaginative Josh Malerman.
Something is out there . . .
Something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.
Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remain, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now, that the boy and girl are four, it is time to go. But the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. And something is following them. But is it man, animal, or monster?
Engulfed in darkness, surrounded by sounds both familiar and frightening, Malorie embarks on a harrowing odyssey—a trip that takes her into an unseen world and back into the past, to the companions who once saved her. Under the guidance of the stalwart Tom, a motely group of strangers banded together against the unseen terror, creating order from the chaos. But when supplies ran low, they were forced to venture outside—and confront the ultimate question: in a world gone mad, who can really be trusted?
Interweaving past and present, Josh Malerman’s breathtaking debut is a horrific and gripping snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.
The Troop by Nick Cutter
The Troop scared the hell out of me, and I couldn't put it down. This is old-school horror at its best." --Stephen King Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip--a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost...
It’s Time for you to Go
True stories of journeys around the world
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer's acclaimed account of a disastrous expedition on Mt Everest.
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
The astonishing saga of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's survival for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctic seas, as Time magazine put it, "defined heroism." Alfred Lansing's scrupulously researched and brilliantly narrated book -- with over 200,000 copies sold -- has long been acknowledged as the definitive account of the Endurance's fateful trip. To write their authoritative story, Lansing consulted with ten of the surviving members and gained access to diaries and personal accounts by eight others.
Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan
Adrift is an undeniable seafaring classic, a riveting firsthand account by the only man known to have survived more than a month alone at sea, fighting for his life in an inflatable raft after his small sloop capsized only six days out. "Utterly absorbing" (Newsweek), Adrift is a must-have for any adventure library.
Papillon by Henri Charriere
"A modern classic of courage and excitement." --The New Yorker * The source for the iconic prison-escape film starring Steve McQueen Henri Charrière, nicknamed "Papillon," for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit.
Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Joan Druett
Telling the true story of two similar shipwreck tragedies that have drastically different outcomes, award-winning maritime historian Druett tells a gripping cautionary tale about leadership, endurance, human ingenuity, and the tenuous line between order and chaos.
Drop Your Buffs
Where the lines of Reality TV get blurred
Survivor and the Endless Gaze by Sallie Tisdale
After twenty years, and more than forty seasons, why is Survivor as popular as ever? In this book, Tisdale brings readers along on a wild adventure, from the shores of 'deserted' islands to the depths of 'Edgic', a statistical analysis of player edits used by fans to predict a season's winner. She delves into the drama, the arguably exploitative contracts participants sign that give away their life, likeness, and very character, and what Tisdale asserts is the underreported racist and sexist history of the show along with appalling cultural appropriation, all while providing a charmed skeptic's evaluation of the best players, alliances, strategies, and, of course, the biggest controversies.
Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum
The rollicking saga of reality television, a "sweeping" ( The Washington Post ) cultural history of America's most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer--"a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture" (NPR) "Passionate, exquisitely told...
Small Game by Blair Braverman
A gripping debut novel about a survival reality show gone wrong that leaves a group of strangers stranded in the northern wilds Four strangers and six weeks: this is all that separates Mara from one life-changing payday.
The Last One by Alexandra Oliva
Survival is the name of the game as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in Alexandra Oliva's fast-paced novel of suspense.
She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far.
It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens--but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them--a young woman the show's producers call Zoo--stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game.
Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life--and husband--she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills--and learn new ones as she goes.
But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways--and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing.
Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.