Ex-British SAS soldier, Bear Grylls has produced survivalist TV programs watched by over 1.2 billion viewers in over 200 countries. The TV shows include Man vs Wild, Mission Survive and The Island. I have seen all of the Man vs Wild shows, which made great TV, very entertaining, although many things are done for spectacle, and are not sensible for survival. Thus, drinking his own urine is dangerous due to the high salt content and possible toxins, as is the toxicity of some of the dead offal meat he ate, and food may not be so urgent in a survival situation, and plant food may be safer. As well, he explored caves, and did dangerous climbs that one should not attempt, since the risk of injury would be high.
Thus, when I picked up his survival books, Born Survivor (Transworld, 2007), and How to Stay Alive (Bantam, 2017), I expected the worst, but was pleasantly surprised. None of the urine-drinking nonsense I could see, but sound material. Thus Born Survivor, has 250 coloured pages of two column print, dealing with all the basics one needs to know in bugging out into the wild, such as the psychological aspects of survival, how to start a fire without matches using sticks rubbed together, navigation, types of knots, securing wild food, getting water (various methods, including purification, usually by boiling), improvising shelters, and the various types of shelters that can be made, and special survival considerations in different types of environments from the severe cold, to tropical forests, to deserts.