James Wesley, Rawles 2nd book – Book Review

James Wesley, Rawles New Book

   Well, here it is… The first non-fiction work from James Wesley Rawles, the author of the cult-classic “Patriots”. If you have spent much time involved with the prepping movement as a whole than you most certainly have either read or heard about this interesting work of fiction. I say interesting rather than great only as there has been many discussions on the forums in regard to the quality of JWR’s writing. I personally enjoyed the book very much and have been able to put into practice a number of things that were suggested in its contents. However, like most things in life there are always different opinions to be had… I will readily give my personal recommendation for anyone looking for a good read, in the theme of preparedness, to pick up a copy.

   Today, I want to bring you a review of his latest work. Like I said and I’m sure many of you know already, this is a non-fiction book. On its face its not all that different than so many survival related handbooks that we have all seen and read over the years.

   It has all of the traditional food, water and shelter or the more recently popular “Beans, Bullets and Bandaids” suggestions. In addition it takes a more decidedly thorough approach to the subject of preparedness, not really a survival handbook so much as a preparedness one, right up my alley! Now, like I have mentioned here in the past, I’m at a stage of my life that the “Batman in the Boondocks” or wilderness survival strategy isn’t on the top of my list. I appreciate the scope of JWR’s work as it pertains more to retreat based preparedness, whether that means bugging in or bugging out, in your particular case its all covered here.

   In addition to the old standbys of have so much of this and add a couple of these, James goes into things that are less common… Communications, Investing and Bartering among others. I am always looking for ways to improve my situation both now and in the future. His thoughts on this type of subject matter are his opinions and we are all free to agree or disagree with him but he has gained quite a bit of credibility inside our special interest group with these opinions.

   The book is written in an old familiar style to me or at least reminds me of another author that I used to read at every opportunity - Ragnar Benson or “Uncle Ragnar” as I often referred to him. He’s another author sure to turn up in future book reviews! If anyone else enjoyed that writing style than you should appreciate this book as well. The style I’m referring to probably has an official name but as I’m not a trained writer, I wouldn’t know what its called - I know, I know, you can’t believe that but its true, I’m 100% self taught! The way the book is written is with a topic heading and than a short paragraph or two on that topic… Also, there are anecdotes sprinkled through out the entire work, my favorite part… Some personal from JWR and others that are  just anecdotal situations, either way I find this writing style to be extremely easy to read and much more light hearted and fun!

   As with everything that James writes, typically on his blogsite at www.survivalblog.com, it has his personal beliefs all over it. Now I’m not saying this in any derogatory way as I share many of those beliefs as well. It is just a classic slant that anyone familiar with James will recognize, such as his belief in charity! He is a HUGE advocate of “Give until it hurts” and makes that suggestion in this book as well.

   I ordered the book on the official “Book Bomb” day of September 30th. Apparently this is a technique that authors will use to show their publishers that they have  incredibly strong support right out of the gate! I guess it worked and James’ publisher had to double the initial printing run already! Congratulations to James on his success. On this note, I was a little disappointed to open the box from Amazon to find a standard size paperback book inside… I’m not sure why but I was expecting a larger book, not necessarily in number of pages but in actual size! I guess that when I ordered it the picture was misleading? It makes no difference but that was just my initial thought. I sat down to read through it as soon as I could. I had planned to finish reading it and publish this review sooner but life’s busy. It never stops getting in the way of what’s truly important, like reading books about the DOOM to come…

James Wesley, Rawles new non fiction book

 

   The book is well worth the purchase price, under $10 bucks last time I looked on Amazon, if you can believe it? It is more than 300 pages with an index and glossary too. The print isn’t large by an means but they have stretched the layout just a little bit, for page count I’m sure. Like I said, its easy reading but thoroughly enjoyable! I don’t think I saw any completely new content that I haven’t contemplated in the past but it does bring new context to some of our classic scenarios. I offer my full support to anyone thats been waiting to  purchase the book, I know you won’t be disappointed. The purchase price is low enough that it should make everyone’s reading list. I’m sure that many Christmas stockings will be graced with this book as well! I encourage all of you to consider this book for any of your unconverted family members too. Thats it, now go out and get a copy of the book!

 

 

Prepper