A solid book
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| Review Date: December 5, 2007 |
| Reviewer: P. Loofbourrow, Oklahoma, USA |
If you get any preparedness book, get this one. Cody Lundin, a wilderness survival expert, gives us urbanites a solid course in what you really need to survive a disaster, step by step. Where many books (and TV shows) promote a fearful attitude, I found this book calming, because he explained so clearly what you might face in the days after a disaster and how to handle each as they came.
He uses short bites of information and lists along with extended explanations so this book can be actually be used in an emergency without having to wade through pages of data to find what you need, but you get a thorough knowledge of the reasoning behind what you'll be doing.
I've read quite a few of these books and this is the best one I've found by far. |
No Hype, Just Richly Informative...
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| Review Date: January 28, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Hikaze Shinjin, OH USA |
Unlike so many other survival manuals attempting to prepare us for Ragnorak (Armageddon), Mr. Lundin avoids the scary hype and simply provides us with honest, clear perspective aided with genuinely valuable information, all of which is valid, reliable and credible.
It's a real-deal guide about how to create the necessary: planning, preparation, practice, psychology and personal responsibility for realistically surviving serious crises. |
When All Hell Breaks Loose
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| Review Date: June 4, 2008 |
| Reviewer: A. D. Cox, northern PA, USA |
When All Hell Breaks Loose
"If you are going through Hell, keep going."--Winston Churchill
Once upon a summer day, a Grasshopper hopped and danced and sung to his heart's content. An Ant passed, dragging a huge sack of powdered milk, beef jerky, and salt.
"Why not come and sing karaoke and do a Jell-O(tm) shot with me," chirped the grasshopper, "Instead of breaking your back, working all day?"
"I am preparing for hard times ahead," said the Ant, "and I recommend you do the same."
"Why worry about winter?" said the Grasshopper. "There's plenty of food right now."
But the ant continued his hard toil. When winter came, the shivering grasshopper had no food and found himself slowly dying of hunger. So, he kicked down the Ant's door only to find out that the Ant had completed a comprehensive martial art training regimen that focused on close-quarters combat and self-defense, and that food was not the only thing the Ant had packed away. Only then did the Grasshopper realize that...
It is best to be prepared for the days of necessity. Haven't you ever stayed awake late at night running through "what if" scenarios? Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornados, zombies, asteroid strikes -- you didn't build that bomb shelter in the backyard just for the kids to use as a playhouse. Well, grab your gasmask and a copy of When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes by Cody Lundin.
He is not another paranoid survivalist huddled in a cave spouting Bible verses and lovingly stroking his guns. Cody Lundin and his Aboriginal Living Skills School have been featured in dozens of national and international media sources, including Dateline NBC, CBS News, USA Today, The Donny and Marie Show, and CBC Radio One in Canada, as well as on the cover of Backpacker magazine. When not teaching for his own school, he is an adjunct faculty member at Yavapai College and a faculty member at the Ecosa Institute. His expertise in practical self-reliance skills comes from a lifetime of personal experience, including designing his own off the grid, passive solar earth home.
This book is not going to teach you how to wrestle an alligator, or try to convince you that all you have to do is gaze into your backyard to find endless amounts of wild edible plants, or that wild game is there for the taking. Hunting and trapping are true arts and require practice, the right equipment, and the proper environment to be successful. What this book will do is provide the knowledge to help you survive the standard survival scenario, which lasts about seventy-two hours, in the most practical, affordable, simple and realistic way possible.
The book is divided into two parts. Part one deals with the psychological aspect of surviving. According to the author "surviving a life-threatening scenario is largely psychological on the part of the survivor(s). Get this fact into your head now that living through a survival scenario is 90 percent psychology, and 10 percent methodology and gear." He covers how to define your survival priorities with his "Pyramid of Needs" and great checklists for preparing you physically, mentally and emotionally, as well as spirituality and the equipment you are going to need. This section will give you the common-sense foundation upon which to base your survival plan.
The second part of this basic survival guide contains the information to keep your physical body alive. Specific chapters on emergency sanitation, water, food, first aid, communication, and more are presented in the most practical detail as possible. Entire books have been devoted to each of the above subjects. So, don't expect this book to cover every possible aspect of these skills, but appreciate the excellent overview..
Perhaps the greatest survival skill of all is being able to keep calm in the face of chaos. This is accomplished by being sensibly prepared and not scared. It may sound romantic to live off the fat of the land. You may have a great yearning to live wild and free. I sometimes get the urge to grow a beard, live in a cave, and become a combination of Grizzly Adams and Daniel Boone, and then I realize that many indigenous peoples died young and died hard. No one plans to find himself in a survival situation. That's part of what makes those situations so terrifying when they happen. This book can be a useful for keeping you and your family alive, or you can pray and wait for FEMA...
Are you an Ant, or a Grasshopper? [...] Hurry, before the world ends: get"Hobo Finds A Home", a children's book about a cat that didn't wait to inherit the earth. Grab your popcorn and get ready for "Hobo: The Motion Picture", coming in 3D and Dolby surround sound.
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When All Hell Breaks Loose
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| Review Date: August 12, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Sam Adams, Minnesota. USA |
The author, Cody Lundin, is a professional survival instructor in Prescott, Arizona. He lives "off the grid in a passive solar earth home in which he catches rain, composts wastes, and pays nothing for heating or cooling."
This book on urban survival can help you prepare for such emergencies as a natural disaster in your area, a debilitating or deadly viral epidemic, or extreme and violent "civil unrest" propagating from one cause or another. Any of these emergencies can put you in a situation where no one can help you but yourself: water and food, medicine and first-aid, hygiene and sanitation, warmth, comfort and light will only be available if you've prepared and made provision for them beforehand.
Lundin surveys home-based survival needs. Topics covered are psychological preparation and mental health, shelter, cooling and heating, water, food, sanitation, hygiene, lighting, cooking, first-aid, self-defense, communications, transportation, and the bugout bag. If you don't know the survival value of household chlorine bleach, you will by the end of this book.
While the coverage is not exhaustive (it would be naive to expect it to be), each topic is given enough attention to take you from blissful ignorance to a solid foundational understanding of what it takes to survive when society breaks down, and how to prepare yourself and equip your home for (at least temporary) self-reliance during very bad times.
This book does not cover wilderness survival: it won't teach you how to construct a debris shelter, make cordage, set-up a Paiute deadfall trap, or how to create fire by friction. Nor does it cover long-term self-reliance topics such as goats and chickens, gardens, food preservation and storage, baking, leather making, or how to set up your home to live permanently and comfortably off the grid. But what it does cover, it covers well and with a real understanding of what living under such conditions entails. |
Everyone in America should read this book.
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| Review Date: November 15, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Penny Do-good, Cedartown, GA USA |
| This book is great. It places a lot of emphasis on the survival mentality. A lot of people skip this step and go for the gadgets or hard core survival/anti terrorism type books. For the value, your money is better spent on this book because of its contents, not it's coverage. Cody Lundin shows exactly how a lay-person must think to survive anything from catastrophic events to a collapse of the stock market. Provides insight on self reliance and many tips along the way. I would recommend this book to everyone except Chuck Norris. He doesn't need it. :0) |
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