Best of
Survival

1999

Storey's Basic Country Skills: A Practical Guide to Self-Reliance


M. John Storey - 1999
    The information is easily understood and readily applicable. More than 150 of Storey's expert authors in gardening, building, animal raising, and homesteading share their specialized knowledge and experience in this ultimate guide to living a more independent, satisfying life.Readers will find step-by-step, illustrated instructions for every aspect of country living including:Finding country landBuying, building, and renovating a homeDeveloping water sources and systemsUnderstanding wiring, plumbing, and heatingUsing alternative heating and energy sourcesVegetable, flower, and herb gardeningTraditional cooking skills such as baking bread and making maple syrupPreparing and preserving meat, fruits, and vegetablesBuilding and maintaining barns, sheds, and outbuildingsCaring for common farm and ranch animals, and pets

Kensuke's Kingdom


Michael Morpurgo - 1999
    But he soon realises there is someone close by, someone who is watching over him and helping him to stay alive. Following a close-run battle between life and death after being stung by a poisonous jelly fish, the mysterious someone--Kensuke--allows Michael into his world and they become friends, teaching and learning from each other, until the day of separation becomes inevitable.Morpurgo here spins a yarn which gently captures the adventurous elements one would expect from a desert-island tale, but the real strength lies in the poignant and subtle observations of friendship, trust and, ultimately, humanity. Beautifully illustrated by Michael Foreman, Kensuke's Kingdom is a stylish, deceptively simple and magical book that will effortlessly capture the heart and imagination of anyone who reads it, ensuring that Morpurgo continues to stand tall amid the ranks of classic children's authors. (Ages 9 and over) --Susan Harrison

The Terrible Hours: The Greatest Submarine Rescue in History


Peter Maas - 1999
    Miraculously, thirty-three crew members still survived. While their loved ones waited in unbearable tension on shore, their ultimate fate would depend upon one man, U.S. Navy officer Charles "Swede" Momsen -- an extraordinary combination of visionary, scientist, and man of action. In this thrilling true narrative, prize-winning author Peter Maas brings us in the vivid detail a moment-by-moment account of the disaster and the man at its center. Could he actually pluck those men from a watery grave? Or had all his pioneering work been in vain?

Fatal Storm: The Inside Story of the Tragic Sydney-Hobart Race


Rob Mundle - 1999
    Rob Mundle takes readers through every white-knuckling hour of the gale that descended in the predawn hours of December 27, stretching over 900 miles from Australia to New Zealand, bringing with it hurricane strength winds and five-story waves. In all, 57 sailors were rescued, plucked from the decks of broken boats or from the sea itself under impossible conditions. Six sailors died.A Sydney-Hobart Race veteran himself, Rob Mundle had total and unequaled access to the people behind the story. The result is a tale of extreme adventure, extraordinary will, and the overwhelming emotional tales of survivors, rescuers, and the bereaved.

Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning


Deborah Madison - 1999
    Yet here is a book that goes back to the future--celebrating traditional but little-known French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition.Translated into English, and with a new foreword by Deborah Madison, this book deliberately ignores freezing and high-temperature canning in favor of methods that are superior because they are less costly and more energy-efficient.As Eliot Coleman says in his foreword to the first edition, "Food preservation techniques can be divided into two categories: the modern scientific methods that remove the life from food, and the natural 'poetic' methods that maintain or enhance the life in food. The poetic techniques produce... foods that have been celebrated for centuries and are considered gourmet delights today.""Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning" offers more than 250 easy and enjoyable recipes featuring locally grown and minimally refined ingredients. It is an essential guide for those who seek healthy food for a healthy world.

Exodus 1947: The Ship That Launched a Nation


Ruth Gruber - 1999
    In the torn, square hole, as big as an open, blitzed barn, we could see a muddle of bedding, possessions, plumbing, broken pipes, overflowing toilets, half-naked men, women looking for children. Cabins were bashed in; railings were ripped off; the lifesaving rafts were dangling at crazy angles."On July 18, 1947, Ruth Gruber, an American journalist, waited on a wharf in Haifa as the Exodus 1947 limped into harbor. The evening before, Gruber had learned that this unarmed ship, with more than 4,500 Holocaust survivors crammed into a former tourist vessel designed for 400 passengers, had been rammed and boarded by the British Navy, which was determined to keep her desperate human cargo from finding refuge in Palestine. Now, though soldiers blockaded both exit and entry to the weary vessel, Gruber was determined to meet the refugees and hear their tales. For the next several months she pursued the émigrés' stories, from Haifa to the prison camps on Cyprus (where she was misled by the British to believe the DPs would land, though they never did), to southern France, and, appallingly, back to Hamburg, Germany, where they were ultimately sent by the intractable British authorities.  As the lone journalist covering this story, Gruber sent riveting dispatches and vivid photographs back to the New York and Paris Herald Tribune, which in turn sent them out to the rest of the world press. Gruber's relentless reporting and striking photographs shaped perceptions worldwide as to the situation of postwar Jewish refugees and of the British Mandate in Palestine, and arguably influenced the United Nations decision to finally create the State of Israel in 1948. In 1948, Gruber assembled her dispatches and thirty of her pictures into Destination Palestine, the book that became the basis for Leon Uris's bestselling novel Exodus and the film of the same name.  In this revised and expanded edition, Gruber has included a new opening chapter of never-before-published material on the wretched DP camps of Europe, where the refugees were living before boarding the Exodus 1947; updated the fate of many of the passengers, describing how they smuggled themselves into Palestine--despite the myriad obstacles thrown up by the British authorities--even before the State of Israel was born; and selected seventy additional photographs from her personal archives.  Bartley Crum's introduction to the original edition, retained here, likened Gruber's achievement to John Hersey's Hiroshima for its powerful compression of a momentous event, its vivid reportage, and its capacity to change the way people think about contemporary history. Exodus 1947 is an enormously moving account by one of the twentieth century's most remarkable women, stirring and shocking us more than fifty years after that battered ship entered Haifa harbor.

Tom Brown's Science and Art of Tracking


Tom Brown Jr. - 1999
    Tom Brown was taught the ancient skills of survival by a Native American he called Grandfather. His most advanced lessons were those of the scouts, members of a secret society who were highly attuned to nature. The scouts refined tracking to a disciplined science and art form. With these physical skills came enhanced perception and true enlightment. "Tracking was their doorway to the universe," Tom Brown writes, "where they could know all things through the tracks..."Now Tom Brown, Jr. shares generations of wisdom through one of the most rewarding pursuits to be found in nature. Tracking lets us unlock the secrets of each animal we follow, and in turn, to become more aware of our own place in nature and the world. It is a journey of discovery that engages the senses, awakens the spirit, and enlightens the soul.

Ice Story: Shackleton's Lost Expedition


Elizabeth Cody Kimmel - 1999
    In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton and a twenty-seven-man crew set off on an expedition to reach and cross Antarctica. Just a month and a half into the voyage, their ship, the Endurance, was caught fast in heavy pack ice. The men had no radio contact, and no one knew where they were or even that they were in trouble. None of them should have survived the ordeal that followed-unstable ice floes, treacherous waters, freezing temperatures, and starvation. Only the extraordinary leadership, courage, and strength of Shackleton brought the whole team safely through. Elizabeth Cody Kimmel's clear, compelling text is illustrated with photographs, taken and carefully preserved by the ship's photographer, that record the stark condition and the day-to-day activities of the men. Hand-drawn maps that show the extraordinary route of the Endurance and her crew. Bibliography, index.

21 Native Wild Edible Plants


Mors Kochanski - 1999
    Positive identifcation, dining on wild plants, acclimatizing to wild plant food along with the diagrams, common and latin names of the more common 21 native plants.

Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea


Dunya Mikhail - 1999
    It comes from beyond the continents. It crosses long distances holding a basket of fire in its hand.”The two halves of Mikhail's book merge past and present in a lyrical memoir that moves between memories of her childhood, her father's death, her Iraqi poet-peers and friends, her job as a journalist for the Baghdad Observer, and culminates with the birth of her daughter Larsa.

SAMMY: Child Survivor of the Holocaust


Samuel R. Harris - 1999
    Thanks you for your invaluable contribution, your strength and your generosity of Spirit” –Steven Spielberg, Director of Shindler’s List. “Sammy Child Survivor of the Holocaust is the remarkable story of a child who was saved because of the persistence of his sister and the cooperation of so many who wanted to enable at least one child to defeat the German plan to destroy all the Jews. What gives the story its remarkable poignancy is that the child’s voice has been preserved, the innocence of his perceptions, the simplicity of his emotions and the acuteness of his sense of danger. Sammy did know pretend to know more than he knew or see history in all its complexity; rather the child is our guide to a world than even the most sophisticated of adults could not understand. The book is both haunting and humbling.” _ Michael Berenbaum, has previously served as president and as director of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust and project director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is the author and editor of two books, including: The world Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Good Spirits: A New Look at Ol' Demon Alcohol


Gene Logsdon - 1999
    Th

Basic Wilderness Survival in Deep Snow


Mors Kochanski - 1999
    Disadvantages and benefits of cold and deep snow, cold weather clothing, footwear, snow shelters and more discussed here.

Secrets of Warmth: For Comfort or Survival


Hal Weiss - 1999
    This book has the keys to keep you warm in any conditions.

Trial by Ice: A Photobiography of Sir Ernst Shackleton


K.M. Kostyal - 1999
    A biography of Sir Ernest Shackleton which includes details of his 1914 expedition to Antarctica which ended in a fight for survival.