The Outdoor Survival Handbook: A Guide To The Resources & Material Available In The Wild & How To Use Them For Food, Shelter, Warmth, & Navigation
Mears, who teaches woodlore courses, advocates learning to "see through the eyes of an indigenous native." He emphasizes a back-to-nature philosophy and survival skills that can be applied nearly anywhere. The line drawings are very good; Mears is obviously knowledgeable and writes clearly. The book is a mixture of very basic skills, such as making fire, plus recipes for outdoor cooking, truck identification, basket making, and poisonous fungi identification. Unfortunately, each topic receives just one or two pages, and no references for further reading are supplied. Furthermore, this book was first published in Great Britain, and all the supply source addresses are British. Readers wanting some depth and American specificity would do better with Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival (Berkley Bks., 1984) or Paul Rezendes's Tracking and the Art of Seeing ( LJ 10/15/92). Not recommended.- Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., CarbondaleCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.