What I Am Reading - Will to Live: Dispatches From the Edge of Survival

Will To Live: Dispatches From the Edge of Survival

Les Stroud

Read it in Paperback at about 228 pages, large print, pictures, and lists.

So behind on these damn things, especially those non-fiction picks, but in any event, this was the December and final pick for OTC Book Club 2013 slaying season.  BoozyCoug once again got the pick and had selected Will to Live: Dispatches From the Edge of Survival by Les Stroude.

A short little book formulated with extreme stories of survival, each amazing and increasingly bleak, laced with Les's opinion of the situation that the survivors got themselves into, what he might have done, and a checklist for surviving the situation at hand.  In-between, we have recaps of Les surviving as captured in the show, retold with words.

While I was initially very excited about this selection since Les is such an interesting individual in the survival community, it was demonstrated that he should stick to the digital medium instead of the written one.  Personally, I had seen the show (most of it) so the recap was boring and didn't add much that wasn't already covered in each of the applicable episodes.  These gaps between the dispatches dragged, even as a fan of the show.  Most of the dispatches were not really covered all that well.  To me, Les covered it at the 10 thousand foot level without diving into a lot of history, backstory, or comparison for the dispatches.  While I was hoping for a Les prospective and more information on the individuals and their situation, I felt I got no more information than if I had watched a quick news broadcast and Les's input wasn't all that…helpful or insightful.  I guess at least I have the tips to surviving some very extreme events…?

While I know most fans will disagree with me, I am a fan, and this book seemed padded for sales instead of what it should have been.  By my opinion aside, how did OTC take this?

On a scale of 1 to 10 with a 1 being a candidate for stuffing a corpse and a 10 ordained to wrap it:

Th3ee: 3

Dust: 5

Hylen: 6

G$$: 4

SS: 5

BoozyCoug: 6

Shely-the-Don: 3

So we only had seven people finish and pulled an average reader score of 4.5.  Ouch Les.

I am going to skip a lot of our conversation details on this one since they are all pretty pointed towards the survival situations in the book.