Bear Grylls does not have the most sterling of reputations among knowledgable wilderness survival practitioners due to his well known misrepresentions of survival skills on TV. Thus, I pretty much expected the same from this book. It starts out with the announcement that Mr. Grylls has been named the Chief Scout of the United Kingdom Scout movement. Being an American Eagle Scout myself, this carried a certain amount of weight with me. I also read that he intends this book to be a wilderness adventure guide for teenaged British Scouts. As I read through the chapters, I was surprised to find that this book contains none of the ill-advised spectacular ratings-driven stunts that infest his TV shows. Nowhere does he suggest anyone should always jump naked into every icy body of water they encounter, or bite into living spiders and grubs so that guts shoot out, or drink their own urine, or any of the other assorted asinine stunts he does on TV. Instead, I found well thought out guides to gear selection and use, navigation, fire starting and other essential skills written for the teenage beginner but still useful for anyone just starting out to learn about hiking, camping, and backpacking. I finished the book with quite a different attitude than when I began. I got the impression that Mr. Grylls took his new responsibility as a role model for British Scouts very seriously and wrote a guidebook devoid of the dangerous nonsense he is known for. While not the most complete or well written book on living in the wild places I've ever read, it is a basic guide well suited to beginning outdoors people. I would recommend it to anyone looking for such a book.