A short review of "How to Survive in the Woods"
3 stars
How to Survive in the Woods: Camping, Fires, Trailing, Tramping, Getting Lost, & Finding Your Way Home is a republishing of a book by Alpheus Hyatt Verrill titled bluntly The Book of Camping and published in 1917. Normally I'm a massive dork and love reading old books, but I didn't buy a book published in 1917, I bought a book published in 2023 and am thusly not interested in reading it for its interesting historical context, but it's actual, practical advice.
Positives
None of the advice will kill you and is, in fact, very useful. The book provides detailed information on how to construct 3 different types of shelters and has boatloads of recipes that I'm going to play around with. The basic principles of camping haven't changed since the book has been written (mostly) and camping based on (most) of the advice in the book will still carry you …
How to Survive in the Woods: Camping, Fires, Trailing, Tramping, Getting Lost, & Finding Your Way Home is a republishing of a book by Alpheus Hyatt Verrill titled bluntly The Book of Camping and published in 1917. Normally I'm a massive dork and love reading old books, but I didn't buy a book published in 1917, I bought a book published in 2023 and am thusly not interested in reading it for its interesting historical context, but it's actual, practical advice.
Positives
None of the advice will kill you and is, in fact, very useful. The book provides detailed information on how to construct 3 different types of shelters and has boatloads of recipes that I'm going to play around with. The basic principles of camping haven't changed since the book has been written (mostly) and camping based on (most) of the advice in the book will still carry you far. Chapter 1 through 3 are by far the most useful in my opinion but gems can be found in the last two chapters as well.
Negatives
Ignoring the section about wilderness medication is probably for the best. Buy a different book for that kind of thing, preferably one that doesn't recommend cocaine and opium as part of your generic first-aid kit.
The information about wilderness medicine is emblematic of the book's overall problem: while all of the information will work, without another book to compare it to --- or already being knowledgable about the subject --- it is difficult to parse out if advice is outdated, with better alternatives existing in the modern day, or straight up illegal.
A minor rant
I wish Microcosm gave any indication in the store that this is a republished version of an old book, because that would have modulated my expectations going into it. Due to the way they handled it, I had already bought the book and was several pages into reading it when I realized that it was any older than 2023, and it was only after focused research did I discover the book was as old as 1917.
If I were handling the printing, I would have added the information about the original publication under the information about Microcosm's edition, as it stands I feel like the Publisher did not give me all the information I needed to make an informed purchase.
Conclusions
Despiete my gripes with it, I think it's a good book and am going to integrate it's advice into my camping routine. Do I think it should be your only book about camping in the modern day? No, too much of the advice needs to be tempered with modern information. Do I think that its a good additional book about camping to add your library? Sure, just be ready to google anything you don't perfectly understand to make sure the information is still good and legal. Do I think it's a good buy for insight into how camping was done in this time period? Yes! As I said at the start, I'm a sucker for this kinda thing and think learning about the past is fascinating and this book is going to fit in perfectly with my library.