While George (http://ow.ly/i/5oEy) is finding adventure with Polar Bears and musicians, Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida, this week in Churchill, next week he will be interviewing a full time Adventurer and Author, Les Stroud. Our guest blogger eagerly read and reviewed his latest book for this blog.
Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival
By: Les Stroud
Released by Harper Collins, Oct. 19, 2010
Paperback, 304 pages
Les Stroud is a member of The Explorers Club, host of Survivorman and Vanishing World, a new show that will air on the Discovery Channel. His first book, Survive!, offers practical tips about how to survive in all kinds of situations. His newest book, Will to Live, also offers many practical tips—including how to survive quicksand and how to butcher a moose—but in this book they are found in sidebars.
Will to Live includes twelve real-life stories of survival, how people found themselves suddenly facing life of death situations, what they did right, and in some cases, what led to their death. It explores the humanity of those who suffer, practical advice for how to survive in each unique situation, and of course, the power of the human will to live. None of the stories included in the book are about simple endurance; they all include ingenuity and inventiveness on the part of the survivors.
Stroud stresses the fact that each person comes from a vastly different background, is in a very different situation, but there are two things that everyone who survives, does right away: First, they face reality, and second, they ask themselves what they are going to do next.
The book is dedicated to Stroud’s father and there is a fantastic forward, written by psychologist, Richard D. Logan. He explains that we all read survival stories primarily because they are about what it takes to cope with life: Planning ahead, getting your stuff together, being creative, and thinking things through before you act. Nevertheless, you have to want to and Will to Live is definitely an apt title for this collection.
Guest blogger
Mel Rhodes Gray
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