Narrow Escapes and Wilderness Adventures

Book excerpt: Here’s a powerful collection of 21 true action stories—the best of Ben East, his most exciting and inspiring narratives of narrow escape, written over the past 30 years. In each of these thrilling tales, this master outdoor writer recreates a dramatic adventure of an ordinary man, usually alone, facing and surviving a sudden threat to his life. All the stories in NARROW ESCAPES AND WILDERNESS ADVENTURES are true. Wherever possible, Ben East has personally interviewed the survivors of these ordeals. The authenticity, immediacy and color of each adventure is heightened by the wealth of detail the author has culled from local newspaper accounts, hospital records, even the correspondence about these men, written by families and friends. Each spellbinding story in NARROW ESCAPES AND WILDERNESS ADVENTURES unfolds against a great outdoors background: Alaska, Equatorial Africa, the Florida Keys, the Michigan woods and many others. In these locales, the men in Ben East’s stories battle heroically to stay alive as they find themselves hopelessly lost, stranded in sub-zero wastes, confronted by enraged beasts, or swamped by savage seas. Suspense continuously mounts as these amateur hunters and fishermen summon previously untapped wells of courage and endurance and, above all, their will to live when nature on the rampage strikes. In addition to being fascinating reading, this book is, in a real sense, an invaluable survival manual which shows how to improve the safety of your outdoor trips and how to survive dangers that cannot be foreseen.