If you like extreme adventures (particularly by yourself) or just want to feel safer when you drive out into lonely, untraveled areas, Survive! will teach you what you need to know about how to prepare for your trip, use your preparations for the best results, and avoid the kind of stupid mistakes that can be costly (even lethal).
Unless you are a survival expert or someone who takes survival courses, you probably don't remember much about what to do when in trouble other than what you might have learned in scouts as a youngster. That information, while somewhat helpful, is clearly dated (there are better solutions available) and may sometimes wrong (such as encouraging you to rub snow on frostbite).
Most of us find ourselves at times in a wilderness area with no one else in sight . . . feeling a little concerned about what could go wrong and then how to recover. I found reading Survive! to be extremely encouraging from that point of view. I read the book with the idea in mind of visiting a certain wilderness area and developed a plan for how I could make that trip much safer and more comfortable. To me, the benefits were enormous.
The book is organized so that you can take it along with you while on a wilderness journey and easily look up what you need to know. I advise that. You won't remember critical details of what to do otherwise. Just one tip (such as how to make snowshoes out of car seat and seat belts) can save a stranded driver's life. I recommend you keep a copy in your car's glove compartment as well. If nothing else, the pages can make for excellent tinder when you make a fire using your car battery!
Mr. Stroud has a nice writing style, illustrates his points well, and provides lots of relevant examples. Surviving may not be easy. Surviving may not be pleasant. But those who are counting on you to survive will appreciate it if you do. Mr. Stroud's book will help you have the confidence and mental toughness to make the right decisions and keep at it until you survive and make it to where you can get help.
It made me feel like a ten-year-old again to read the book, getting ready for my first overnight hike and camping trip into the Mojave Desert. I'm sure you'll recall many of your outdoor adventures as you think about how this advice would have been helpful in the past.
The only areas where the book could have been expanded are those where a lone driver gets stuck. Here's an example: Most people don't know how to improve traction by using techniques like deflating tires in sand, putting traction-improving materials under the wheels, and digging a pathway out of the stuck area. To do all this requires having a shovel in your trunk and being able to assess which methods fit your problem.
I recommend that Mr. Stroud write a car-owner's version of this book for those who drive by themselves and might get stuck or break down in a lonely area. Most people could get themselves out of trouble if they only knew how.