Customer Reviews

Primitive Living, Self-Sufficiency, and Survival Skills

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

 

 

I bought this book to learn, not to hear about how a bird flew passed the author's path in the morning. For me, there was too much of the authors feelings and jabber about how he felt at a given moment. The word skills in the title led me to believe there are things to learn from this book. For me this book is a let down and dificult to read.

This book is a good overview of primitive skills. I know how to make stone tools, (not well, but I at least know how it's done) and found the section on making stone tools extremely lacking to say the least. However, I learned a lot about subject I know nothing. If you know something about these subjects you might also find the secions lacking. It's an overview and a good book for beginers, but not for the more advanced. I was always told never to eat chokecherries because of the cyanide. The author tells you how to remove the cyanide. However, I'll let you be the one to eat the chokecherries.
Wyatt Kaldenberg

This is a very good book but is not as detailed as similar books on the same subjects. This book also does not show many variations of some of the depicted techniques. However this does not detract from this book at all. What the does convey he does in a very easy to understand and entertaining way. The author is an expert at what he teaches and runs a primitive survival school, so if you need hands on training that would be a good place to look. This book cover some of the following subjects; primitive cooking methods, shelter building, tanning hides, primitive fire making, water procurement, clothing fabrication and editable plants. This book is formatted well and flows easily, with excellent illustrations. Overall it is a very good book and worth the time to read.

This is one of my least liked wilderness survival books that I own. It doen't teach that much on the subject of survival.

I purchased this book in hopes of it being an inspiration. I thought it would be a how to book and show survival things.
Instead it seems to read like a "story" book. Very little how to , as far as showing techniques.
So all in all it was VERY VERY big disappointment. If you want a survival guide type book.
Save your money and look for another source!!!!

This book appears to be a duplicate by another publisher of Elpel's book Participating in Nature: Thomas J. Elpel's Field Guide to Primitive Living Skills, which I have reviewed. Elpel's own website does not list this title, but does list Participating in Nature.

got this one from my sister-in-law last x-mass. i really like this book. it is well written and has all kinds of crap in it about eating bears with your hands, catching things on fire and wilderness cooking recipies including my favorite, 'ash cakes'.