Customer Reviews

Lost in the Jungle

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I survive almost exclusively on a voracious reading diet of nonfiction adventure. But I am also a picky eater -- bailing on almost 25% of all books when they don't hold my interest. Lost in the Jungle was a fine meal! A great balance of subtle human drama and edge-of-your-seat intensity. Right up my alley.

I thought this was a terrific story of adventure & survival with a little mystery tossed in. I really enjoyed it.

This is the true tale from one of the survivors of this ill fated adventure.

You may have seen this on "I shouldn't have survived" or its "science of Survival" sequel (both here on Amazon I believe)

I couldn't put it down, very little got done around me till it was finished.

This would be excellent for a very long plane flight, say half way around the world.

Want to say something else but don't want to give it away.

International best seller for good reason.

Thank you Yossi, Man of Action.

This is one of my top 20 books in my nonfiction adventure collection. Fast-paced and exciting, I couldn't put it down. It was as if I was in the jungle with him. The conflict between the characters felt so real and I could feel the tension build. Very well written. Excellent book!

For other books that I found gripping and well worth reading, see my other reviews or my listmania list. I am an avid reader of true adventure and/or survival stories.

One of the great fringe benefits of writing books is that I get to read a lot of good books in the course of my research. I've been reading lots of first-person narratives of near-death survival experiences lately while working on my current book project which will be completed in the next two months. One such book is Yossi Ghinsberg's Lost in the Jungle. At one time, back when I was obsessed with getting to the jungle for the first time myself, I read anything and everything I could find related to jungle travel. Now, having been there and done that more than once, it began to have less appeal, and somehow I passed on Ghinsberg's excellent book a couple of times when I picked up the original hardcover edition in the bookstore and flipped through the pages.

I now realize the mistake I made after recently reading this book, which I couldn't put down once drawn into the narrative. Lost in the Jungle is in fact a gripping account of a lone man with little knowledge of wilderness survival facing one of the most unforgiving wildernesses in the world - a trackless swath of the Bolivian Amazon along the remote and inaccessible Tuichi River.

Ghinsberg is extremely fortunate that he lived to write his book. Two of the four companions he started out with on his ill-prepared trip were never heard from again. In the first part of the book as you read his account of how they ended up in such a predicament, it's hard to have much sympathy for any of them as you see mistake after mistake being made. But once Ghinsberg is alone and telling of his terrifying experiences after getting swept through raging rapids on a log raft when he becomes separated from his remaining companion, his descriptions of the difficulties the jungle presents and his methods of dealing with them with practically nothing win you over to his side. He turns out to be an incredibly tenacious survivor against odds that few experts would care to even contemplate. Even with his inexperience, he manages to find food, shelter himself from torrential downpours, survive a flash flood that nearly sweeps him away, extricate himself from quicksand bogs and fend off a prowling jaguar in the middle of the night.

I think the most important lesson this book has to teach is the role of attitude and the will to live in an extreme test of life or death. Ghinsberg refuses to give up, and near the end of the narrative, when he knows he can't walk out, he resigns himself to the possibility that he may have to wait months before someone comes along on the river. Even with this dismal prospect, he starts making plans to survive alone like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe of the jungle until he can get out. It is little wonder that today he makes his living as a motivational speaker. This review is condensed from my orginal review on [...]

Overall.........a pretty good read. I especially liked the prologue update. However, I was expecting just a little bit more. Sort of felt like it got cut off short right when it was beginning to get exciting.

I really enjoyed this book. I usually am a pretty selective reader, I buy a lot of book that I think i want to read and by the first chapter they are under the bed never to be read. This one really captured my attention and I found myself making time to see what was going to happen next. Very good read that captured my attention.

WOW! I literally could not put this book down. First, I got to live vicariously the adventures of Yossi, a young backpacker. Then, when he was lost, he is just a good as describing the events in a way that I could see and hear what was going on and also feel what he was feeling. Amazing true story. If you liked Between a Rock you will love love love this one!

I read this last November and was so amazed by it. It is now my top rated book.
This book is really good for those wanting to live through an adventure that happened in the rain forest. If you like roughin' it and spending time in the wild you will enjoy the journey this book takes you on. If you are interested in learning more about Bolivia then this book is for you. It really is gripping and the characters are amazing! The short show on Discovery documenting this trip does not do it justice. The real surprise in this story is Karl.. Such a mysterious and interesting character. You won't be disappointed. The real reason to get this is the amazing story. Just... wow. Don't worry about the naysayers out there. There are enough people to corroborate this story you should dismiss that thought. For those people who crave adventure and going deeper in than others have gone, etc. will really appreciate Yossi's story. Take care Yossi. Thank you for sharing your story. I think about it a lot!

Dan-

It's a shame, because this is a fun read, but a great deal of it is obviously completely fabricated. If you've ever been in the Amazon jungle (I have), or panned for gold (I have), or used a shotgun (I have) then it is obvious that the author has no inkling about how that sort of thing really works. Come on, eating roasted monkey tail like corn on the cob? The parts on searching for gold are particularly laughable. So enjoy it, but take it in the spirit of the "tall tale", where a good story gets stretched a bit to make it even better. There seems to be quite a genre of tall tales about the Andes and Amazon, passed off as the real thing (see Warriors of the Clouds, A Lost Civilization of the Upper Andes by Keith Muscutt). Ghinsberg did the tourist thing and came up with a good story, give him credit for that I guess.