Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like: *To Walk on the Moon*To Be Gored by a Bull*To Survive an Avalanche *To Swallow Swords*To Go Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel*To Be Shot in the Head*To Win the L
A.J. Jacobs
Paperback
(Three Rivers Press, Sept. 23, 2003)
Have you ever wondered what it feels like:to be stuck in a tornado?ā[It] is exactly the feel of a freight train approachingāthat low, ever-louder howl and the shuddering ground.āto participate in an orgy?āAnd all the while, the thought that keeps going through your mind (and through the cab ride home, and into breakfast the next day): āIām at an orgy! Iām at an orgy!āāto have a severe stutter?āThe thing is, thereās a disconnect thing between my mind and my tongue. My mindās processing a thousand words a minute, and the tongue is only squeezing out ten or twelve.āto be a mob hitman?āItās nerve-racking. Donāt let anyone tell you any different. Anybody whoās any good at this is concentrating with every nerve in their body, trying to get it done right and trying not to get caught.āto be 105 years old?āI was born in 1897 and Iāve seen a lot in the world. Iāve seen everything there is to see. You look back and tell yourself, āWhat have I been doing all these years?āāIf these tidbits whet your appetite for real, first-person accounts of some of lifeās most exhilarating, harrowing, or downright strange experiences, then youāll be sucked in by Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like. Collected by the ever-curious editors of Esquire magazine, here are more than fifty gripping talesāstraight from the mouths of the people whoāve lived them.