5 Books That Tell Edge-of-Your-Seat True Survival Tales

On April 26, 2003, Aron Ralston set out alone into Utah’s Blue John Canyon, when a falling chockstone pinned his arm and transformed his life. His resulting memoir chronicles six days of dwindling water, cold nights and improvised survival—including urinating into his CamelBak to drink later. Then, an epiphany struck: “If I torque my arm far enough, I can break my forearm bones.” The self-amputation that followed—the tearing of tendons, the cutting of arteries, the snapping of nerve strands—is recounted with unsparing clarity. Ralston’s escape, through a one-handed rappel and an eight-mile hike, cements his story as one of the most visceral and unforgettable survival narratives ever written.

In 1929, at the age of 24, Elliott Merrick left his New Jersey advertising job to travel more than 300 miles through remote northern Canada with his wife Kay and trapper John Michelin. His journey—by canoe, portage (carrying a boat between bodies of water), snowshoe and toboggan—tested him against unforgiving extremes of cold and hunger. “All of it has not been pretty,” Merrick writes, “but the gem-like beauty of these months has freed the soul like some sweeping tragedy that is too splendid and transcendent ever to be tragic.” His luminous prose, offering a rare view onto the boreal wilderness, has long captivated readers—including Tim Smith, founder of the Jack Mountain Bushcraft School. “Merrick is a gifted writer and, more importantly, is honest with the reader about his failings and shortcomings,” Smith says. “I have read True North once a year for 20 years, and will continue to do so.”

One of the greatest survival epics of the 20th century began with a failure. In 1914, Ernest Shackleton set out to lead the first overland crossing of Antarctica on foot. Instead, his ship, the Endurance, became trapped in pack ice for 11 months before finally being crushed: “When her timbers could no longer stand the strain, they broke with a report like artillery fire.” Shackleton and his crew of 27 were left stranded on the floes some 1,200 miles from the closest human outpost. What followed was an 800-mile voyage in an open boat through some of the world’s most treacherous seas, the desperate crossing of South Georgia’s mountains and, against all odds, the survival of every man. Lansing drew on interviews with survivors and detailed diaries from eight crew members, including one particularly striking entry by First Officer Lionel Greenstreet, who paused between scraping a piece of sealskin to write: “One of the finest days we have ever had…a pleasure to be alive.” With Endurance, Lansing crafts an unsentimental, vivid and faithful account—“a classic survival story,” Smith proclaims.

“We’re going to hit!” cried Peter DeLeo before his single-engine plane crashed in California’s Sierra Nevadas on November 27, 1994. The impact left him with seven broken ribs, a fractured shoulder, a shattered ankle—and two even more severely injured companions. Determined to find help, DeLeo hiked out alone through waist-deep snow, enduring white-out blizzards, frostbite and a bear that circled so close he felt its “hot foul breath.” DeLeo’s feat drew headlines—and the book, written in the present tense, reads like a fast-paced thriller. But while reviews praise DeLeo’s grit, Jessie Krebs, owner and head instructor of O.W.L.S. Skills: Outdoorsy Women Learning Survival Skills, recommends it as a cautionary tale about decision-making under huge physical duress. “He was the most experienced of the three men,” Krebs says. It’s possible that “if he had stayed, used proper signaling techniques and assisted his two companions, at least one of them might have survived.”

José Salvador Alvarenga left Mexico's coast on November 17, 2012, for what was meant to be a routine 30-hour fishing expedition. He ended up drifting some 9,000 miles over 438 days—the longest known solo survival at sea in recorded history. Franklin captures both Alvarenga’s despair—especially after the death of his boatmate, Ezequiel Córdoba—and the remarkable feats that kept him alive: repelling shark attacks, hauling in fish bare-handed and drinking turtle blood. After months of blistering sun and hallucinations, Alvarenga finally staggered ashore in the Marshall Islands, delirious and barely able to walk. While Alvarenga’s account has had its skeptics—Franklin included at first—fellow fishermen and Mexican officials corroborate his extraordinary, and almost unbelievable, modern-day odyssey.