Which Tom Brown Jr books?

[Stew]

Tom Brown Jr sure has written a fair few books.

Which would you recommend reading?
Before you say all of them, put them in order of preference! :-)

I presume that the one that is most concerned with how to track is "The Science and Art of Tracking".( :idea: )

How about the others? I see he has some on how-to survive.

Are the rest mainly filled with anecdotes of his life?

[Justin Time]

Hi Stew

His "Field Guide to Wilderness Survival" has some good stuff in it. The "Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking" is also very useful and is probably a better start than " The Science and Art of Tracking". The Science and Art of Tracking is mainly concerned with pressure releases and using them to teach you about the animal or person's behaviour etc. This is pretty high level stuff ( for me anyway) and I suspect you need to have worked through the Field Guide first to get the best out of it.

I don't have the others in his field guide series. You're right that his other non-field guide books are quite anecdotal with a heavy concentration on the spiritual side. That's his style and you either take or leave it. Even the field guides have a fair bit of anecdotal stuff in them. often about how Grandfather taught him and his pal, Rick

HTH

[C_Claycomb]

I got The Science and Art of Tracking. Very good. I have been told that the recent book of Case Studies (or something like that) is good. Having read a couple of case studies from his students off the Web, I think it might be interesting.

As for his other books, he writes with such a mix of anecdote, hard info and spiritual stuff that I am hesitant to buy another without having thumbed through it first. I just am less keen on reading his philosophical teaching :roll: than i am about tracking.

Chris

[Richie]

I have the case files of a tracker and it is a ok read although I would of thought from the amount of cases he is said to have undertaken for the FBI and Police Forces he would have had better stories to tell.

The science of tracking is very good although some what deep.

Wilderness survival and Nature Observation are also good and worth a read.

As for the others I would wait and get these first if you are after practical information.

Richie

[jamesdevine]

If it's not just a practical step by step giude your after the Tracker the first book is worth a read.

I follows the progress of he's early teaching and alot of insight into the way these skills were learnt.

Go stores in particular the last one. Very good.

I have also read the way of the scout which very good as well.

James

[ChrisKavanaugh]

There has been a great deal of controversy over Brown's true 'credentials.' The wilderness skills/survival community and the associated cottage industry is trying to share an allready limited market, with the inevitable personality clashes and attacks. I have mixed opinions about him. I attended his introductory course many years ago. My first outdoors mentor was also an Apache, except mine was a working cowboy in Arizona. I greeted Tom in the traditional Apache greeting when we met. The response is best described as the dull stare of a cow in pasture. Another student quite innocently challenged a statement on navigation based on simple mathematics. Tom flew into a rage, claiming the man insulted Grandfather's memory and kicked him out with a speedy refund. Still, I enjoyed the course and felt it worthwhile at the time. There has never been any proof that grandfather and Rick even existed, both being conveniently dead. Others have supposedely contacted many police agencies, F.B.I. etc and found no record of his professional association in searches. I have had contemporary students complain he merely sits there chain smoking, claiming to be able to track via telepathy while assistants run a pretty standard outdoor school. The basic texts are good, with the same stupid mistakes about solar stills and improperly illustrated deadfalls that have become fossilized in the literature at large. I find the rest to be to the fluff and woo woo of a 'born again indian. ' I think Tom is an update of the Canadian 'indian writer' Grey Owl. Brown isn't alone in this commercial exploitation. The marvelous SAS pocket survival book is de riguer for my kit. I do however take issue with the SAS guide to survival in Land's End, volume 1.

[Adi007]

The basic texts are good, with the same stupid mistakes about solar stills and improperly illustrated deadfalls that have become fossilized in the literature at large.

This has always bugged me ... how do such mistakes crop up in works by "experts" who supposedly used this stuff? I wonder if it just added as page filler of by some unseen editor figure. :?:

[ChrisKavanaugh]

One thing I've learned studying any subject is to read all the standard or classic texts. Just when you want to scream at another discussion of firemaking a Mors Kochanski will actually mention using the forward upsweep of your knife to produce superior shavings on a feather stick. Sometimes it takes different references to fully understand one skill. Different writing styles, or small tricks sort it all out. That is the upside of the literature. the LETHAL errors are the downside. I see the same illustration of a brush shelter time after time. I believe it originated in the USAF survival manual along with the unworkable deadfall drawing and the infamous solar still. Being public domain, they are like some lethal gene that pops up in every new generation of books. The solar still concept was discovered in a USDA (agriculture) laboratory and became a standard point of training. Trouble is, nobody actually did it under adverse conditions where the sweat equity far outwieghs any return. I am always encountering people who think this works,teach that it works and have never, ever field tested it in anything less than optimal conditions where you could almost collect the water with a cup.

[Ed]

.. or lining a fire pit with flint......
The problem with military manuals is they were all basicaly written a long time ago. New generations of instructors are trained using this material.... they update it but the mistakes are left in...'coz they are in the manual' even though untried and untested in adverse conditions.
What it would take is for the manuals to be written from scratch and only include techniques that have been tried and tested in the field.

Ed

[Justin Time]

Chris,
I'd fogotten about the solar still, I think I just blank those bits out. Although I did flick though the Chris Ryan survival nook when it came out and decided that it wasn't worth the money just because it contained the solar still.

Now when it coes to traps I haven't a clue, and not much interest at the moment so don't pay much attention to those in any books, IIRC one of the Angier books has a load of stuff in it, and he seems to know what he;s on about.

[Kath]

Sorry must have missed something along the way... what's wrong with solar stills? I've seen plenty of 'em, never been that impressed, but didn't get the impression they were bogus...

[Richie]

Kath they are not so much bogus as they don't give much return for the amount of effort that one has to put in to make it.

Richie

[Kath]

Kath they are not so much bogus as they don't give much return for the amount of effort that one has to put in to make it.

Richie

Ah right. Thanks! :-D

I never thought of it that way. (But then I guess I never hang about in too many deserts, so it's moot for me anyway. :wink

[Stuart]

Solar stills simply waste more by the way of sweat though there construction than they replace (very inefficient)

If they worked you would see the indigionus peoples of the desert using them.......... They dont

The only place that you will really get solar stills to work at there maximum output is over saturated soil, but in such conditions there are far easier ways of obtaining it