Review; The Will to Live

I just finished reading Les Stroud's "The Will to Live". It's more or less a collection of survival stories retold and editorialized by Stroud with snippets of additional information. I found it to be really interesting and a remarkably quick read. "The Will to Live" is not for the faint of heart, however, and contains pretty gory details of some of the events that I'll leave up to the reader to find. Regardless of this, I couldn't help but to place myself mentally in those same situations and question what I would end up doing.

The story of Douglas Mawson is particularly powerful, and since he works in the same scientific field that I do it was all that much easier to place myself intellectually in his shoes. Of course, no experience on my part comes even close to measuring up to what he went through. His survival boggles the mind. I hope I never have to go through something like that, but if I do I hope I am not found wanting.

On my scale, "The Will to Live" is about a 8.5 or so out of 10. Stroud has a way of words and with images, but he's not yet what I'd call a gifted writer, and that makes the difference between him and, say, Heinlein.