Book Review: Survive!: Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere – Alive

RealisticPreparedness.com Book Review

Survive!: Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere – Alive

by: Les Stroud

Summary:

Survive!: Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere – Alive has a good selection of different ideas and options for meeting your basic needs in a variety of survival situations.

Sources:

The content of this book comes from the author’s personal knowledge and consultations with survival experts and local guides from all over the world.

Depth:

Les Stroud breaks survival down into fifteen different main categories, with each one getting its own chapter. Water, fire, shelter, food, clothing, navigation, signaling and such are all covered in detail, with different options suggested, depending on the weather and location. Shelter, for example, goes over different considerations, depending on if you are in snow, the jungle, woods, mountains or a swamp. The author includes many short references to his own experiences and adventures over the years, in context to the topic being discussed, but the focus of the work is more on providing a good reference than entertaining the reader.

Overall:

This book provides a good overview of skills and methods without getting bogged down by some of the more extreme and likely dangerous survival techniques that are sometimes seen. The author does a good job setting realistic priorities and explaining why these aspects are the most important.

  The chapters on survival kits and first aid are just that, chapters. They provide a good overview, but more information would be needed to be fully informed about these topics.