This review has been a long time coming. I have had this book for quite some time and I’ve been a bit speechless as to how to articulate how GOOD this book is.
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tl;dr:
This book is the best, most comprehensive, modern wilderness survival book that I have ever read. It is a must read for anyone into bushcraft, wilderness survival, primitive living, long term camping, etc.
Long version:
Now before I jump in I’d like to clarify – I have read and own a LOT of wilderness survival books. I don’t have all of them, but I’ve read a lot of the “classic” books by authors such as Nessmuk, Horace Kephart, Larry Dean Olsen, Paul Kirtley, Mors Kochanski, Richard Graves. I’ve also read a few of the more modern author’s books such as Mike Lummio, Sam Larsen, Kevin Estela, and Nicole Apelian. (All worth a read by the way). If I were forced to pick just one book though, it’ s absolutely THRIVE by Juan Pablo Quiñonez. For those of you who don’t know by this point, Juan Pablo won season 9 of the Alone show on the History channel. Definitely watch his season to learn more about how legit his skills are.
If you know someone who’s into the outdoors, hunting, survival, bushcraft, wilderness survival, primitive skills, etc., this is a book is a fabulous gift idea.
Anyway, so lets get into this review. This book is comprehensive in it’s information AND it’s well organized. There’s a table of contents and an index that lead you to the topics surrounding the survival mindset, clothing, travel, water, shelter, food, foraging, edible plants, fishing, trapping, hunting, bushcraft, winter, health, electronics, natural hazards, and more. One thing I really enjoyed about the style of this book is it combines the more traditional line drawings like the older books on these same topics AND real photos of gear/plants/etc. as needed. It also includes references to websites. Juan Pablo doesn’t shy away from recommending specific gear, but also gives enough general information that you can do your own research on say, what knife to bring? what type of sleeping bag? what type of water filter? etc. You get enough info in the book and you can go even deeper by searching the websites and gear he lists in the book.
It’s hard to describe how detailed this book is. But to give you a hint – it’s 481 pages long. There are quite a few drawings, images, and charts to supplement the text, but it is just jam packed with all the details. Like I said before, I’ve read a lot of these books and this is the first one that included a significant amount of really useful information about the survival mindset. There’s commentary generally about a survival mindset and mentality, but it also goes deeper. One of my favorite chapters was titled “Mindset” and it dives deep into how to manage stress and a good mentality while out in the bush. It has breathwork guides and general commentary on survival philosophies I found really interesting.
This book also does a good job navigating modern times such as technology and electronics vs. traditional skills. A lot of the older books are a delight to read, but do not consider say, the environmental impact of some of the bushcraft skills. Kephart is an example, when he describes making camp, he has no qualms with chopping down a lot of trees and really digging in to make camp (even making floors in his canvas tents, etc.) which really isn’t as realistic or feasible in our modern times where we recognize that if everyone did such things, the nature we have left would get wrecked. I think Juan Pablo does a good job commenting on how to navigate this and is realistic about the skills/gear that you’d want to use now vs. a couple hundred years ago. We can still learn some of these skills but use discretion as to when they are appropriate.
I want to note that this guide does focus on the boreal forest, which is pretty far north for a lot of us. That being said there’s a lot to learn about cold weather survival from this book that some of us might not need on the regular, but is fascinating and useful to know.
I can’t say enough good things about this book. On top of it all it’s very well edited!! I almost always catch typos, even in books by big publishers, but this one is flawless. Absolutely satisfying to read. Thank you so very much to Juan Pablo for working so hard on this amazing book, you’ve really put something out into the bushcrafty space that everyone needs to get their hands on. Shouts out also to everyone that contributed and helped with information in this book, Juan Pablo lists them in his introduction. When you’ve got people like most of the contestants from season 9 of Alone and more contributing to making this book possible you KNOW it’s going to be a good one.
If you haven’t already, check out Juan Pablo’s website, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and give him some likes/follows/subscribes!
That’s all for now! Until next time, PEACE!
