Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I was a a big fan of Les Stroud's Survivorman and Beyond Survival. His way of conveying survival instincts and tactics always appealed to me more than other survivalists in the field and TV.
This book is not just about Les Stroud's survival tactics (though they are sprinkled throughout the book), it mostly showcases and critiques other instances of amazing survival stories. Les offers his analysis and compares it to his own experiences. From the infamous Old Christian Rugby Team plane crash high in the Andes to Yossi Ghinsberg who miraculously survived alone in the Amazon for many days, and several other stories.
Some of the chapters are about his own experiences (some shown on Survivorman). My personal favorite was his trip to the Amazon with the Waorani. The chapter explained much of the background to that Survivorman episode, including his frantic chase with a Jaguar! Some nice full color photos are shown in the middle of Les in various locations when shooting Survivorman.
One of the coolest features in the book are Les's lists of survival necessities for certain situations and lessons to keep you out of harms way. From learning how to survive in quick sand to avoiding snow blindness, and supply lists, I can actually hear Les's voice explaining his thoughts for each of these.
If you are a die hard fan of Les Stroud or just an adventurist or survivalist I highly recommend this book. I read it practically in one night, and plan to re-read it in the next few weeks. There is so much to each story of survival not just about making it out alive, but the strength of the human spirt in hard times.

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In a survival situation, a wrong decision could spell the difference between life and death.

No one knows this better than Les Stroud, who has survived everywhere from the sun-scorched sands of the Kalahari to the snake-infested jungles of the Amazon. In Will to Live, Les examines many incredible true life survival stories-explaining what happened and why, and offering valuable perspectives on what went right, what went wrong, and what could have been done differently. The tales in Will to Live include:

Chris McCandless-the subject of the book and movie Into the Wild. Yossi Ghinsberg-who survived alone in the Amazon for twenty-one days.

Douglas Mawson-the Antarctic "superman" who survived three hellish months at the bottom of the planet.

Nando Parrado-who was trapped for two months high in the Andes after a plane crash killed his friends and family.

Plus . . . stories from Les's own experiences, along with practical sidebars with tips on how to escape quicksand, butcher a moose, cross a snow-covered crevasse, and more.

Provocative and entertaining, Will to Live is a compilation of history's most intriguing survival stories from one of the world's foremost experts.

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