The title of Les Stroud's new book covers an aspect of survival that I've posted about here several times in the past: the importance of the right mental attitude and the unstoppable determination to make it out of difficult situations in spite of seemingly impossible obstacles. See these posts: On Maintaining a Positive Attitude, and Can't Never Could. In addition to what I've said about the importance of the mental aspects of survival here on Bug Out Survival, my new book, Getting Out Alive: 13 Deadly Scenarios and How Others Survived
Ironically, I was writing Getting Out Alive last year at apparently about the same time Stroud was working on his book between his numerous trips all over the world to film his TV series Beyond Survival. I found out about the book a month or so before it's February 1, 2011 release when the publisher sent me a review copy as I was correcting the final proofs of my own book.
Obviously, books like Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival
Les Stroud is best known for his television shows such as Survivorman, but is also the author of Survive!: Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere - Alive
Many of the real-life accounts will be familiar to readers here, as I have posted in the past and written in my own books about Yossi Ghinsberg's jungle survival ordeal and the death of Chris McCandless who perished in the Alaskan bush during an experiment in living off the land. Another chapter focuses on the story of Nando Parrado who survived 72 days in the Andes after a famous plane crash in 1972 and later wrote about his epic struggle along with his fellow survivors against cold and hunger in his book, Miracle in the Andes. In each of these chapters examining the accounts of survivors, Stroud points out both the mistakes made and the things that were done right.
If you're looking for an entertaining read that you can also learn from, I highly recommend Will To Live. Among the various bloggers and forum posters in the survival and prepping community, from time-to-time I run across comments advising readers to pass on books like this because they're not worth the money or would not be a necessary addition to the survival library. I would suggest that you ignore such advice and consider that a book like Will To Live (currently listed at $11.85 on Amazon) offers a whole lot of entertaining reading with the bonus that you might learn something in the process. Consider that most magazines these days run around $7.00 an issue and are filled with much more advertising than real articles, not to mention that most people toss them after one reading. All of us with an interest in survival topics have the usual how-to books on the shelf, and you should make them a priority as well if you're serious about learning. But make some room for related entertaining reading as well, and you might be surprised when one day you find yourself in an extreme situation and some small bit of knowledge you acquired from something you read about another person's ultimate test resurfaces just when you need it most.
Scott you ought to come out and do some desrt and mountain camping with me here in Utah we also have Canyolands to explore. It is great fun.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to. I can't wait to get out West again. I've spent a lot of time in the deserts, canyons and mountains there.
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