The Survival Handbook: Essential Skills for Outdoor Adventure Paperback – February 20, 2012

The survival book that I will be reviewing today is The Survival Handbook: Essential Skills for Outdoor Adventure, Written by Colin Towell. The book is a manual style survival guide aimed towards educating the reader in outdoor adventure survival. The book is split into 7 large educational sections including: Preparation, On the Trail, Camp Craft, Taking Shelter, Food and Water, In an Emergency, and First Aid. This a complete guide aimed at helping even the most inexperienced adventurer through many situations. The book contains thousands of helpful tip, tricks and general knowledge to help those who are interested in taking their first outdoor adventure. Through detailed step-by-step instructions and diagrams, the book walks you through specific tasks for almost any situation that you may find yourself in, as well as giving the reader the basic understand of task and the mechanisms to understand from the bottom up. The Autor is Colin Towell, a British Army Special Air Service (SAS) Veteran with more than 30 years of experience, he was also the British Navy’s Chief survival instructor, which means that he is more than qualified to be the author of a book like this.My personal experience with the book was very good. I was extremely pleased how much was covered for a book that is not oversized and would easily fit into a backpack if you ever needed to check it for reference. I believe that this book would be vital to bring on an adventure if I were to embark on one. To show how in-depth this book is, I thought we would talk about the sections relating to building, lighting, and maintaining a fire. For this section alone there are twelve pages dedicated to making a fire. The book educates you first on the components that are required to get a fire started. It explains that heat, oxygen and fuel are the basic components and that there are many different ways to go about getting it started. Then continues to include choosing the area of ground that you will build your fire on, and explains you never want to light a fire directly on the ground. It continues to talk about tinder and different ways to acquire. Fuel is the next part of the instructions; this is the actual wood that is used to keep the fire going and the best types of wood to choose for the job. Next, there is a eight by five box diagram that outlines the types of tires you can make including; how to build it, where to use it, why to use that type of fire, and the uses of the fire. The next section outlines the different ways you can make sparks to light a fire with another diagram with the required gear, how to do it, and comments to help you along the way.As a visual learner I feel as though the diagrams in this book truly give great step by step instructions throughout the book on every skill that is presented within the book. For that reason, I would definitely recommend this book for other that are looking to get educated on outdoor survival or adventure. I also think that this book is just a good one to have in the case of an emergency and would recommend it to anyone that wants to be prepared in case of an emergency or natural disaster. It is a book designed to teach people who have no knowledge on how to survive in the wilderness so it could be a major help to anyone that may eventually find themselves without water, food, or shelter. For instance, it would be great for someone to have if a hurricane came and there was no electricity or water, the book could help them find food, shelter and clean water until things return to normal.I was a massive fan of this book, as stated before, the book really takes challenging tasks and break them down step by step to allow the reader to fully understand how to accomplish the task. The book is easy to read and has picture diagrams to help you understand what needs to be done, as well as extensive instructions that in my opinion go above and beyond what may be required. My favorite part of the book was the way the information was presented to the reader. This is because it first gives you the basic understanding of how any task operates, then it tells you what you will need to complete that task, and then finally tells you how to complete the task. I think that this is very important if you are attempting to complete a task that you have never done before. By first explaining the basic mechanisms of the task the reader can understand how to complete it from a basic standpoint, which helps translate it into an actual skill. I feel like many guides simply just present the information on how to do the task instead of explaining why and how you have to do it that way to complete the task. My least favorite part of the book was the appendix which included Wild Foods and Natural Dangers. This section is rather small and does not include pictures of what the food and dangers look like. They do have a description on how to identify them, but if they had added a picture to the appendix for all of the items it would have be much easier to identify them. If I could add anything to the book, I would include a section on dangerous animals and how to avoid them. I feel like this is a large part of outdoor adventure/survival and should have been included in the book. Many peoples greatest fear around outdoor adventure is the wildlife and a section like this could really help to educate those that are reluctant to go on an adventure but may be too frightened by the wildlife.Overall, I was a huge fan of the book, I think that it is a great place to start if you are looking to find literature that will help you to learn about what it takes to go on an outdoor adventure, or even just to have in your house in case of an emergency. I do not think the book is fully suitable for adventurers that plan to go on adventures that go on for weeks, for that I would suggest something with more advanced skills, but for a beginner or someone who is looking for a survival manual in case of emergency it would be a great choice. I was very pleased with the book overall and will definitely be keeping it on my shelf just in case I ever run into a situation where I may be without electricity or water, there are a bunch of great skills that can be learned from this book.

I own and have read several survival books. This one is outstanding. The digital "pictures" provide excellent detail, and the breadth is impressive. If you're looking for the survival book to solve all of your problems and answer all of your questions, you've come to the wrong place. Such a book simply doesn't exist. However, if you're looking for an excellent "cover-all-the-bases-in-impressive-detail" book, you've found your book.A few of the complaints I've noticed here, and my observations:1. The book is too large to carry in your backpack.Yes, it is. I bought the paperback--the binding is excellent for a paperback, but it is still too large for a backpack. But the book never claimed to be a "carry-along," and the scope of the book would be greatly hindered if it were distilled into a pocket guide. I'm using it to learn and practice at home--I don't want to teach myself after the fact.2. The book is not detailed enough.Look, it's just not realistic to expect complete depth in all areas. This book gives you the essentials (just as the title says), but it doesn't spend 30 pages on buckskin tanning like Naked Into the Wilderness (great book, by the way). This should be expected. This book deals with the various climates you might normally expect to survive in. Is it a dissertation on Boreal Forest survival? No.If you're in the market, which is why you might read my ramblings, I urge you to buy this book. It will get you started, it will get you thinking, and it will get you ready. Then, once you know what you're doing and that you want to narrow your focus to the deserts of the southwest, or the northwest rainforest, you can purchase Mors Kochanski's stuff, or John McPherson's stuff, or Ray Mears' stuff.You can get more of a feel when you preview the book. The "Contents" section will tell you all that is included and if this book is for you. This is an excellent all-around survival guide, and the next step is location specific. Good luck!

Every human has their own pet peeves, and most of them are silly. One of my silly pet peeves is the use of the term "Flint and Steel" for sets that did not really include flint. This book does this by referring to a ferrocerium rod and scraper as "flint and steel". It's that one silly nit that causes me to not give it 5 stars. I know, I know... I'm being overly picky... But ferrocerium is NOT flint, dangit! (In fact, if you look at what happens to the steel, ferrocerium is the OPPOSITE of flint, but the end result is still sparks. But I digress...)Overall, though, I've learned a lot from this book, and was reminded of other things I had forgotten. It's a very good book that uses a graphic and text format that easily understood and fast to read. I take it every week to the Boy Scout Troop meetings (even though it's surprisingly heavy for a paperback) and have used it as a reference when certain topics come up. I do recommend this book (in spite of the flint issue).

Per gli Italiani che desiderano questo capolavoro della manualistica survival sappiate che il testo è completamente in Inglese. Qualora ciò non fosse un problema, il testo e le immagini dimostrative sono chiarissimi, gli scenari disponibili sono vari e spaziano dalla foresta amazzonica alla tundra ghiacciata, le tecniche dimostrate prendono in considerazione la disponibilità o meno d'attrezzatura specialistica, la costruzione d'attrezzatura e strutture d'emergenza. Ogni macrocapitolo/scenario è dotato d'un diagramma che in situazioni di panico e stress può aiutarvi a fare la miglior scelta per la vostra sopravvivenza. Il manuale è solido, la carta è spessa e leggermente plastificata. Unico contro sono le dimensioni (chiaramente per poter essere un manuale decententemente esaustivo dovevano scendere a compromessi tra contenuti e dimensioni). Lo consiglio vivamente a tutti gli amanti dell'outdoor e del survival che non si spaventano davanti ad un po' d'Inglese! 👣🐺

The best Survival book with pictures and i mean it. So many pictures that you dont have to read it to understand everything it says. Astonishing!!

I'm still reading through the book, but I've had a chance to look through the entire book and I'm quite impressed. I bought this book primarily as a basic reference book for survival generally. It is a beautiful book with large print, lots of helpful pictures, and straightforward information layed out into well considered sections. Most topics get between 2 and 4 pages each, more if necessary. Each type of environment (e.g. Tropical, Desert, Cold, Mountain, etc) gets two pages each. Natural Cordage gets 4 pages, Knots get 4 pages, Fire by Friction gets 4 pages, Tropical Shelters get six pages, etc... Long story short most topics get covered sufficiently with simple and effective solutions, but this book doesn't provide an exhaustive list on any specific subject by far. So you get 10 knots where a book specializing in knots might show 200+. But the knots you do get (much like everything else in this book) have been chosen because they are simple and effective. The biggest gap I found in this book has to do with wild edibles. There is a list in the appendix under wild food, but there aren't any pictures and the list is not exhaustive. Having said that, wild edibles are such a varied and specific topic that a person would be best served with a specific book on that subject for the area in which they intend to operate. There is a strong focus on camping and hiking gear, especially at the start of the book which might be appealing to people interested in those particular pursuits. Overall, a strong recommendation for a nice basic reference guide.

Excellent Book. A must have for everybody interested in camping & hiking. The book is very informative and detailed though it is bit heavy to carry at places where is serves the most.

It's a big book. But i love big books. You can use it to get knowledge and tips. It's packed with loads of information - from what backpack you should buy, how to set up camp, and how to train before you go to how you cross a stream, make a fire, mend a broken leg or what plans are poisonous. I loved it!