Just so we're clear, I don't like horror movies either

I was told I should read Gavin de Becker's personal safety handbook THE GIFT OF FEAR because it would really scare me. Even before I moved to New York I was told it was a must-read for any women who want to do things like "leave the house alone" and "go out after dark." So naturally I put it off until I had lived here more than 2 years without incident.

Normally, I would steer clear of any books whose raison d'être is to destroy my feelings of security for my own good, but THE GIFT OF FEAR has some good information in it, although I probably could have gotten the relevant info from a longish magazine article rather than a whole book. I can summarize de Becker's findings in two bullet points:

• People don't just "snap" and do something violent; their behavior usually provides clues before a major incident.
• If you're paying attention, you can get yourself out of a dangerous situation, even if you don't realize what exactly is making you feel uncomfortable.
  

About 70 percent of the book is absorbed with this first point, giving examples from postal clerks gone postal (statistically, not all that common) to date rape and assault. I think I would've liked more about the second, the seeming "gift" of the title, because knowing that my instinct might save me I wanted to find out why. I don't mean to be flippant, these are really scary incidents, but the book often substitutes practical knowledge for "A woman was once being tailed in her car to the supermarket but she somehow knew to pull into a gas station, and that's instinct."

De Becker has worked with some famous people, although he doesn't usually name names; it's a shame, because celebrity problems with people are much magnified from the rest of us, and at least with some name recognition they might have been of more interest. He does discuss the O.J. Simpson case in some detail in the chapter on domestic violence, which, having been protected from the gory details in the '90s, was new to me but probably won't be to you.

If you already know to be suspicious of strange men who approach you offering help, take off your head phones in an unfamiliar place at night and be discreet about where you scatter your home address, you can probably skip this book. It did, however, give me a wild hair about taking self-defense classes, which I might still do.