Customer Reviews

The Book of Survival: The Original Guide to Staying Alive, Revised Edition

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

note that the Anthony Greenbank paperback has 267 pages (for my pre-Sept 11 revised edition), not the 224 Amazon attributes to it.

Ever since I started selling books on survival, I have had requests from people asking for Anthony Greenbank's book, long out of print, The Book Of Survival.

Well, it's back. This new revised edition (revised again post-Sept.11) contains new tips on BASIC TERROR TACTICS SURVIVAL, CHEMICAL WEAPONS, BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS which have added since the attacks on New York and Washington.

The book contains a wealth of common sense advice - and quite a few tips that seem to come from left field, but make sense - and has some good illustrations which make ground-to-air communications, for instance, very easy to understand.

Chapters are: too lonely; too crowded; too dry; too wet; too bright; too dark; too cold; too hot; too low; too high; too fast; too slow; too full; too empty - all are written using a technique called mnemonics, which is supposed to help the reader retain or recall what has been read.

What stopped this book getting 5 stars though, is the writing, which I found a little 'odd' in parts. At the very beginning of the book I was put off by such statements as, "flaming electric blanket murders family"... an inanimate object 'murdering'??? I know it's not much, but it grated. At various stages I found myself wondering whether the book had been badly translated into english!

That aside, the book is worth a look. It covers every contingency imaginable and it does contain some great ideas that will help you stay out of, or get out of trouble.

I read this book and it is insightful, truly helpful, and packed with good, solid information. I am an avid outdoorsman, athlete, SCUBA diver, mountaineer, and never have I come across such a well presented in-depth, "survive everything" book. The book first was published in the 60's and has been out of print until now. I saw the negative review below and was appalled that the reader just didn't get it. Perhaps the reader below didn't appreciate the unique style of Greenbanks approach. Greenbank refers to this as "telegraph" style. Or maybe the reader was secretly the author of a competitive book. Whatever it may be, ignore it.

Tony Greenbank is real. His ideas are sound and many people have been utilizing his ideas for more than 30 years. It is a book worth having, reading, and remembering.

Now in its third revised edition, The Book Of Survival: The Original Guide To Staying Alive In The City, The Suburbs And The Wild Lands Beyond by urban and wilderness survival expert Anthony Greenbank is a practical, no-nonsense instruction manual to staying safe and alive whether in an urban or outdoors situation. From defending oneself against physical attack; to avoiding frostbite; to surviving a head-on car crash; and with newly added information concerning biological warfare, electrical blackouts, dirty bombs, child abductors, escaping from high-rise towers, and more, The Book Of Survival is eminently readable and a critically important informational resource recommended for both personal reading lists and community library reference collections.

This is a holistic, albeit somewhat sparse book that covers all aspects of self-defense and survival. That's a broad statement but it reall does cover everything from becoming lost in the woods to surviving a riot to defending against a physical attack to surviving in a blazing desert or frosty snowfield to surviving an automobile accident to avoiding child abductions and more. In the wake of 9/11, this new edition adds information about bio terror, dirty bombs and even escaping from high-rise towers. Even if you own a previous edition the new features are well worth buying a newer copy.

Contents are grouped into chapters: Too Lonely, Too Crowded, Too Dry, Too Wet, Too Bright, Too Dark, Too Cold, Too Hot, Too Low, Too High, Too Fast, Too Slow, Too Full, and Too Empty. It's mnemonically written for easy memory retention. Because it covers so many subjects each one gets only a few short paragraphs at most yet these cover all the critical survival aspects of every scenario. I highly recommend reading this book though I also highly recommend purchasing complementary texts to flesh out areas which most affect you and your individual situation. Despite the outstanding content I just don't feel that it is complete enough all by itself. Strongly recommended regardless.

Lawrence Kane
Author of Surviving Armed Assaults, The Way of Kata, and Martial Arts Instruction

This book is fun and full of fascinating things. I began reading it in New York City and finished it in the Scottish Highlands. In both places there was lots of information here to equip me in the case of emergency. In fact it's hard to think of any place or eventuality which this book doesn't cover. The next time I'm trapped in a car underwater, I'll know what to do. Sorry the reviewer from Hollywood didn't like it. Maybe he's upset at the lack of survival advice for unemployed actors.

This book, has the distinction of being the best-organized, most comprehensive survival book ever written. Concise, calm, logical, it addresses nearly every situation that deviates from the norm, categorized in a very easy-to-find method: Too Hot, Too Cold, Too Wet, Too Lonely, etc. The shame of it is that the book is no longer published, but while many *kinds* of survival texts are published, this is the only one that you need.

This book is filled with Awesome information you never know when you'll need. Everyone is faced with a Crazy situation at some point, this book covers just about every predicament a person could Possibly get into. Whether on land or at sea, in the city or in the wilderness, chances are the problems you could face are covered in this book. The chapters are divided into different Ails such as, Too Lonely, Too Hot, Too Dark, and Too Thirsty. This makes it easy to find the solution to your crisis in no time. Two Thumbs Up!

Funny, intelligent and highly useful. A dense pot-pourri of life saving information that has real uses. From practical situations--saving yourself and your family if your house is on fire--to less common but no less dangerous situations...this book has it all. It is easy to read and uniquely organized. Check it out!

I bought this book after having flipped through it at a local bookstore and thought it looked decent, because I had mainly looked at the one and only portion of the book that had any redeeming quality whatsoever. Unfortunately I hadn't looked deeply enough to see that the bulk if this book is full of completely erroneous information, which should be apparent even to people who have only the vaguest ideas of survival.

I wonder how far most people would get, though, in piecing together just how bad the information in this book truly is, since its readability is lacking terribly. Don't believe the "About the Author" above, or the back cover of the book, both of which try their hardest to make it seem like author Greenbank is somehow trustworthy. Supposedly the man lives in England and teaches survival all over, yet from this book you would think that he just started trying to learn to speak Eglish last week! Maybe somewhere in this book there were some tiny bits of information that may have been useful, but no one will ver know because those bits would be buried underneath the author's incomprehensible babble.

DON'T buy this book. [...] I bought this book because I had the misfortune of flipping to the section on self defense, which had some okay suggestions. At the time I thought the author was just quirky, but let me tell you, this guy doesn't know anything. [...]

Following the advice in this book, which I read years ago when it first came out, saved my life. The book is well-organized for quick recall in an emergency: sections are titled "too fast" (car crash, plane crash, etc.), "too dry" (desert), etc. That's what you're thinking when you're in trouble!