Book Review: The Survival Handbook

I finally finished reading The Survival Handbook by Colin Towell. Overall it was a pretty good read.

One thing there is no shortage of in this book is information. It's crammed full of helpful skills from somewhat luxurious wilderness living with all the latest technology and equipment  to showing you more primitive skills. There is a wide variety of survival skills covered in detail throughout the entire book.

Over the last couple of years I have used this book as a reference to accomplish many tasks in the outdoors with great success. I have learned so much from using the techniques illustrated in the handbook. The details concerning each particular skill given are pretty amazing considering all the information  covered and the illustrations are excellent.

There are a few small complaints however. I found that there were just too many boxes, bubbles, and sidebars on almost every page. If you were just using it as a reference this wouldn't be problem, but if you are reading through the entire book it can be a distraction and makes it a pain to read. It's not a book you would probably pick up to read for just a few minutes. I eventually had to make it a discipline to sit down and read a couple pages a day.

Overall this would make a fantastic addition to your library. It is an excellent reference and one I would highly recommend.

Book Review: Special Forces Survival Guide

Hey blog readers! I hope everyone had a great Christmas.

I finally found the time during, Christmas vacation, to finish reading the Special Forces Survival Guide by Chris McNab. It was an interesting read. Partly good, partly bad.

It was very helpful to read the tips given directly from the Special Forces. Often the tips would show you a more efficient way to preform a survival task or give first aid. Although the tips did not make up the vast majority of the book, I consider them a good reason to read it.

Even though the book was packed full of helpful information, there are still a few things that need a little sorting out. As I said, there is alot of good information in there, but this book is not a big book, so some of the instructions are a little vague for the sake of space. While it might serve as a good reminder for some skills, I wouldn't recommend this as a first read for beginner survival enthusiast. Some of the vague instructions could lead to preforming some of the skills incorrectly, which wouldn't be good in a real survival situation.

This would be a good book, if you are somewhat familiar with basic survival skills, to take along as a memory help while you are out in the wilds. There are enough instructions given to trigger your memory if you were already familiar with the skills that are given.

I would also be very interested in more information on the author, Chris McNab. I tried before writing this to do a little research about him, but as of right now my filter blocked all of the websites I tried getting on. (Gotta love those things.) I would be interested in any info anyone can give me about him.