So. read Bear Grylls' new book "Mud sweat and tears." its motivational; in the sense that there is a lot of motivational talk. And a few stories.

My review then: Meh.

If you've heard any pre-game speech by any coach, ever, you've heard most of these. No take aways. Some of the paragraphs are as short as two or three sentences. Feels like the third book he promised and ran out of material on book two.

I'm not surprised. Love him or hate him you gotta admit he's promoted the hell out of himself. Can't be much left in the tank to shill.

A couple of years ago I ran across one of his earlier books. It actually gave quite decent advise on coping with back country emergencies.

There! I actually made a favorable comment about BG. Don't hold your breath for another. His TV stuff is garbage.

I've only read Living Wild, but that is a really good book. I initially picked it up because it was dedicate to Scouts world wild and I was curious about what he was teaching to that audience.

Interestingly, I've always held a somewhat negative view of Man v. Wild, but never really watched a full show. Recently I've been watching survival shows while exercising and after finishing up the Survivorman series I decided to give Man v. Wild a shot. I'm most way through season 1 now and my opinion of the show has actually increased a fair bit. From my perspective, it really isn't that far off in the amount of usable information from Survivorman and Bear even does a better job in a couple areas.

Ultimately I think both shows fall a bit short as real-world instruction because they both focus on surviving free of support for an extended time & self extraction. Realistically, most of us in an outdoors emergency need to focus more on being found and not making SAR's job harder than it needs to be.

Most books don't spend enough time on the basics - and no magazine does.

I think he's a joke IMHO. A showman. Get out alive was just silly. But he does know his stuff. I've been watching Cody Lundin, who's nuttier than the foil hat people, but he has some great tricks.

I kind of agree with you, but a joke is something funny. At least on his TV stuff, he is showing and advocating some very dangerous, and highly lethal, practices.

Cody Lundin has probably sent a lot of fools meandering through the wilderness barefoot and in shorts, as well.

Let's face it, these shows are typically about entertainment, hence they feature the bizarre, spectacular, and showy stuff. Actually, real life survival, your typical tough night in the woods, is rather boring and dull - just doesn't look good on the tube.

Just an example. Some ear ago, the Discovery Channel did several features concerning the excavation of pygmy mammoth bones on the Channel Islands (USA). Occasionally, I would have to go over the edge of a sea cliff to retrieve a specimen. The TV guys ate it up and always featured this activity. Watching the show you would think this happened every day, while actually the operation was rather infrequent. But it did look good.

But it can be so scary out there at night. In the dark. All alone. The shadows from the fire. The sounds of the night creatures. The sudden crack of a twig...
Too bad I have a bad habit of sleeping through all of that, except waking to tend the fire or to swat a bug. TG the little woman is armed and not afraid of the dark so she can walk to the latrine without having me along.

Bear Grylls ....

"I'm not risking my life in the wilderness. But I did sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night!"