I have a pile of survival books that I've bought with good intentions of reading them and writing reviews for ETS. This is the first that I actually found time to read and write a review for. Hopefully this won't be the last.


I'm a big fan of Les Stroud. I've enjoyed his TV shows and I also got quite a bit out of his book _Survive!_. In my mind, he's the "real deal" as far as survival experts go, but he also manages to be quite entertaining with his shows. It's an impressive combination.

Unlike _Survive!_, _Will To Live_ isn't meant as a survival text. It consists of a series of extreme survival stories gathered by Stroud from the survivors and other sources, with circumstances including antarctic, jungle, alpine, shipwreck, air crash, and just plain old poor judgement. All of the stories were new to me, and each was rich with useful detail of what the survivors (and some who were not so fortunate) did. More than that, Stroud works to give the reader insight into the mental and emotional states of the people he writes about. He is unabashed in stating his belief that the will to live trumps knowledge, equipment, and luck.

The author is not shy to call out excellence or poor judgement where he sees it, giving the reader some insight into what he would have done. Leavened with a few personal stories and morsels of survival lore, the book is tightly focused on its central thesis.

I enjoyed it. Some parts of the book were un-put-downable. If you liked _Deep Survival_ by Laurence Gonzales, you'll likely appreciate _Will To Live_.

Thanks for the review.

I finally found a copy of Deep Survival at Half Price Books last week. Over the years I had heard a great deal about how good it was, and I have to agree that it was a fascinating read. I finished it in 2 days and handed it to my step-daughter who is a psychology major. She is really enjoying it as well.

I will keep an eye out for Stroud's book. Like you I am a big fan, so I am looking forward to it.

Greg

Deep Survival is an outstanding book. It really makes one think about the backcountry.

Blake

www.outdoorquest.blogspot.com

I found Deep Survival a very worthwhile read and I will plan to acquire Will To Live - Stroud is the only half way rational TV personality.

For me at least, the classic survival text is "The Survival Book," by Paul H. Nesbitt, Alonzo W. Pond, and William H. Allen,published in 1959. I obtained it the year it was published, also the year I graduated from college, and really started to spend serious time outdoors.

Although it is obviously dated (no mention of GPS or cell phones!) it sets forth principles which remain valid today. Some quotes -

"This book as only one purpose - to aid and insure your survival after emergency aircraft landings regardless of geographic location."

"...the obstacles to be overcome [in survival] are not so much physical as mental" "...tools and training are not enough; none is effective without the will to survive."

The authors provide a lot of data and episodes from WWII which are quite informative. Rather quaint is what today would be considered overuse of the masculine pronoun. Many pf the first aid protocols are obsolete, like back pressure-arm lift artificial respiration. I still turn to my well thumbed copy because a lot of the book is simply timeless and always relevant.

You can actually find a copy on Amazon, and quite cheap, at that.