Bushcraft: An Inspirational Guide to Surviving in the Wilderness

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Summary: Bushcraft
Review: A good coffee table book,But far too heavy and impractical for taking with you camping/travelling.Illustrations dark and not clear.Same old information,which has already been written by others.

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Summary: Back to Nature with Ray Mears
Review: British survival expert Ray Mears' newest book "Bushcraft" will give you good advice for when you wonder out in the wilderness. It covers all basic survival skills, from where to find food and water to how to make shelters and fire, and it does this for all kinds of environments, from the desert to the arctic. Although Mears himself looks like your average English office clerk, his knowledge of nature and survival, partly learned from hunter-gatherers like Australian Aboriginals and African Kung San bushmen, is truly impressive. Through a number of survival courses I did myself, I found out that the techniques described in Bushcraft work well, but they often do require quite some practice to master.
The book is filled with attractive colour photographs from Mears' trips to remote locations like Alaska and the Honduran rainforest, also covered in his BBC television survival series. You have to realize though, that because of the book's weight and dimensions, it's not really a practical field guide for in your rucksack but more a book that you would comfortably read at home.
And it almost looks like Mears was in a hurry to finish the book, because the last chapter, about finding food, ends rather abruptly and contains very little information on hunting and trapping while Mears acknowledges that these are fundamental bushcraft skills. Finally, a note to foreign readers, you might need a dictionary for translating the English plant, tree and animal names.

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Summary: Usful, informative in a nice but heavy body
Review: I have Ray's The Outdoor Survival Handbook, which is far more suitable as a real handbook. On the other hand, nobody promised that Bushcraft will be the same, or even similar. It's seriously big for field use. You have to read and learn in your home, practice in the backyard and use the knowledge on the field. Anyway, because it have far more informative illustrations and more verbose text, it's far easier to get a complete knowlege about basic surviving techniques, meanwhile the handbook may have a pocket in your backpack.
It was quiet frustrating to get it after almost three months of waiting with the unquestionable evidences of its origin. Shame on Amazon to simply buy the item in a nearby bookshop.

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Summary: Excellent practical ... and spiritual advice
Review: Ray Mears is an English adventurer and specialist in wilderness survival who has made a number of highly successful television series and published several books on the subject in Britain.

I must confess to having some reservations when Ray Mears' TV programmes began. At first I assumed they would be another round of macho invitations to pretend you are in the SAS and go out and light fires ... then stagger back home two days later with a bad cold, ringworm, and a terminal case of food poisoning.

Mears, to his credit, does not peddle the macho image. Instead, what he has consistently presented is respect for the natural world and recognition that, for thousands of years we had to learn to live with nature, now we are in danger of destroying the planet by trying to exploit (or simply ignore) nature.

Mears shows an understanding of how people cope without a supermarket on their doorstep. His survival skills and knowledge are certainly to be recommended to anyone going walking in the mountains, or in any wild part of the world. But what Mears presents is much more than simple survival skills for emergencies. He is identifying survival skills for the planet - and I'm sure he is too modest to make any such claim.

He does not present the message in any evangelical way - he simply and calmly points out that while `primitive' cultures understand nature and how to live with it, our civilisation has forgotten that knowledge ... and is in danger of swamping the so-called primitive cultures with Western consumerism, until they too forget. His message is that true civilisation recognises and respects nature, and finds a balance of living with it.

This book synthesises a lot of the information Mears has collected - plants to use for shelter, for food, for medicine, for binding and clothing, etc., etc., and techniques which could keep you alive in difficult situations. But the overall message which comes across is one of wonder and tolerance and respect. An excellent book which should inspire and challenge.

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Summary: Wow, dont get lost without it!
Review: This is a great book. After seeing Ray Mears on the Travel Channel, I had to get this book! It has great pictures and illustrations... a must-buy!