Customer Reviews

98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive!

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Excellent book on survival. I am glad someone finally divides "SURVIVAL" from "Wilderness Living Skills" I would venture to say that most people that provide bad reviews of this book are looking for texts in Wilderness Living Skills. There are other books for that. I use 98.6 for a text book in our Search and Rescue Team training. In reality most victims succumb to hypothermia in survival situations other than trying to catch fish with a shoe string and a safety pin. It is reality at its best, presented in a humorous fashion.

Ted Fisher, Vermilion County Search and Rescue

It's about time I pick up a book that has more than a list of survival skills. In fact, this book doesn't make any attempt to teach you how to trap animals or construct log furniture in the wilderness. Instead, you learn how to idetify potential survival situations and avoid getting into them if possible. If you do, backcountry knowledge will be helpful but it will be even better if you know how to take care of the basics such as controling fear and focusing on keeping your body at a comfy 98.6 degrees. I absolutely loved this book. There is discussion of psychology, biology, and physiology, all in a basic easy to understand format. Lundin's writing style is as if he were there talking to you. One of my personal favorites of the book is the chapter on survival kits, complete with color photographs. I thought I had a pretty good kit but after reading this, I need to make a few changes. If you spend any time in the world, anywhere, I recommend this book. If you want to know how to build monster solar stills, trap wild animals, and spear fish, look elsewhere. This book rocks!

Prior to embarking on a rugged solo day hike in AZ's Superstition Wilderness, I read this book cover to cover. (I'm a middle-aged, East Coast trail hiker who hasn't hiked recently, so survival was a major consideration.) My desert day hike turned into an overnight stay on a canyon ledge far from the trailhead. Thanks to Cody Lundin's book, I maintained a "party on" attitude, was fully prepared (both with equipment and mentally), and spent a fabulous night watching the stars. The right attitude is everything! Enjoyed the humor and common sense approach of his writing. His examples stick with you when you need them. Great tips on putting together a practical, personal survival kit that will work anywhere. There's now one in my pack and one in my car. Lots of useful information on how to overcome fear and keep your head.

This book works for many reasons:

1. Unlike alot of wilderness survival books that are cut and paste jobs from military manuals, Cody's book is funny, entertaining, and highly readable while remaining on topic-hence the info conveyed will stay with you.
But don't be fooled by the gonzo approach. Cody knows what he's talking about. The first few chapters about maintaining core body temperature should probably be read more than once.

2. Cody covers the base essentials: wear proper clothing, maintain core body temperature, and prepare for the 72-hour survival window. Learning how to snare a deer, while fun, with your boot string probably won't come into play during most wilderness survival ordeals. (I did actually learn how to do this at a survival course in Virginia.)
And here's the statistical bottomline of Cody's overall philosophy: if you aren't located in the first 72 hours, your chance of survival and rescue drops to 3%. Of course this doesn't mean you give up, but that's the statistical reality.

3. Cody devotes a substantial part of the book on how to build a personal survival kit. I really like his approach: the kit should be portable and cheap; hence, you can build several, test them beforehand, easily replace items, and become intimately familiar with them. No need to buy a $120 Doug Ritter Survival Knife or $150 Delta Life Capsule unless you have money to burn or are a survival gear junkie like me.

4. And let me say one last thing...military manuals written about survival should be taken with a grain of salt; in a survival situation, your goal should be to stay loud and visible until found; in the military, even in a survival situation, our goal is to remain invisible and undetected until rescued; usually with the aid of radio and satellite.

If you are involved in *any* outdoor activity, even if you just walk to your mailbox and back, this is a book you should have.

Filled with all kinds of insightful tips, tricks, and Cody's personal take on the survival kit, it stands up better than many of the other books in the field.

What I like most is Cody's survival kit, a core to the book. It is small (fits in a fanny pack), lightweight (under 5 lbs), and inexpensive (no costs given, but I priced it out at well under $50 and that is buying much of the pieces at a regular retailer, as opposed to a discount store).

Go ahead, pick up a copy, you can't go wrong.

OK, here's the deal. If you've ever read through one of the exhaustive, "Military-FM-Type" survival manuals (some of which are really great, by the way - Lofty Wiseman's classic comes to mind), you know that they often detail a half-dozen ways to improvise and use fishing gear, maybe a dozen different snares and deadfalls, and several dozen or more species of wild edibles. Absolutely none of which are included in Cody Lundin's book.

And they darn well shouldn't be. Simple as that.

Because even a cursory glance at survival/rescue statistics will support Cody's assertion that the vast majority of wilderness survival scenarios, barring getting lost in the Amazon or something (if that's a possibility for you, by all means check out Wiseman, but AFTER you've read this -- what's here still applies), occur over a 72 hour period or less. This book is about making it through that three day period. That means that, given an average amount of body fat, you could have not eaten for a couple of WEEKS before you got lost and probably still come out okay. Food's just not an issue for short term survival, folks.

But hypothermia and hyperthermia? Now THOSE are issues, as another casual glance at the statistics will confirm. What's the number one killer? Not a failure to eat. Not a failure to navigate by the stars. Not even a failure to adequately execute a figure-four deadfall. Nope. The number one killer is a failure to adequately regulate core body temperature.

The problem is, everybody else glosses over this particular subject on their way to the really cool improvised fishing tackle and blowguns. I mean EVERYBODY. I love the books by Lofty Wiseman, Greg Davenport, Bradford Angier, and Ray Mears, just to name a few. I really do, and I think they're all worthwhile reads. But maintaining temperature is given barely a mention in these works; maybe a paragraph each for arctic and desert extremes, maybe a page or two in the first aid section. And it's the NUMBER ONE KILLER!

What the reading of Cody Lundin's book does is hammer this realization into your brain by way of repetition, mnemonics, humor, and cartoons. These things aren't filler, as has been suggested; they're part of a bona fide teaching methodology. And it's a methodology that works. The book actually affects your behavior on (or off) the trail. You'll find yourself constantly monitoring your body, your clothing, your fluid intake. If you go out with loved ones, you'll find yourself far less cavalier concerning their environmental safety. And if something does happen, to you or to someone else, you'll by God know what to do about it. All of which are Really Good Things.

So, yes, there are certainly more complete technical manuals on the market, and I urge anyone even remotely interested to check them out. But the fact is that hypo/hyperthermia isn't something that should be relegated to a blurb, like treating a snakebite or building an igloo. It's SERIOUS and, whoever you are, if you play outside you're LIKELY TO EXPERIENCE ONE OR BOTH at some point. So start here. Enjoy Cody's style, or not. Laugh at the cartoons, or not. But read it, because if you do I guarantee that the information that's here will stick with you, and might just save your life.

The info contained in this book wasn't bad, but it's painfully obvious that they didn't put a bit of thought into how the lists and illustrations would appear on a Kindle screen . The Kindle registers them as images, not text, so the resizing tool is useless.
Unless you enjoy reading size 3 Arial, buy the physical book, not the Kindle edition.

Unless something is wrong with you, your goal when thrust into a survival situation is to get out of it as fast as you can. That is the premise of this book. You won't find detailed instructions on building and using a fire bow. You won't find recomendations on the biggest, baddest knife. The one used in the book has about a 4 inch blade and retails for less than $20. You will find practicle suggestions for fire. You will also find suggestions on assembling a survival kit that's thorough but not enormous. There is scientific discussion on the human body's reaction to the environment. All of this is presented in a humorous style. The book focuses on preparation for a survival situation and how to get out of it. Not learning flint knapping, snare building, dead falls, etc. I found the book informative and easy to read. Those offended by the few cartoon characters should get a life.

The goal of Lundin's book is to teach you how to survive until help arrives. As such, he doesn't attempt to teach primitive living skills. As he points out, it's not that they're without value, but the most common wilderness emergency situation is being stranded in the middle of nowhere for a few days. His in-depth explanations of how the body succumbs to hypothermia and hyperthermia are well written and serve to drive home his points regarding proper clothing and hydration. Lundin also stresses the importance of keeping your head and offers useful advice for doing so. The section on survival kits is highly informative with good logical explanations for each item included. The author provides valuable, easy-to-follow instructions in other areas as well (such as fire starting and signaling rescuers). There isn't much at all on land navigation, but then again that's not the subject Lundin is dealing with. The book, while well written and often humorous, frequently uses language that's unnecessarily raw, but given the excellent information presented, it's easily overlooked. This is a well written text that provides a great deal of information in a format that is easily understood.

And you will get more than that in this gem of a book. This book is not about long term survival but is focused on how to avoid injury or death in a far more common scenario - backcountry emergency, the trip gone bad, etc...Well researched information on what the body requires to get out alive. I especially enjoyed the survial kit photos (well done) and descriptions. I would have to say this is one of the most useful books on the subject and from a man who has real experience to share.