The Rugged Life

The Modern Guide to Self-Reliance

By: Clint Emerson

Narrated by: Clint Emerson

Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Become self-reliant, live off the land, and be prepared for the unexpected in this modern guide to self-sufficiency and homesteading from New York Times bestselling author, retired Navy SEAL, and survival skills expert Clint Emerson.

“Add The Rugged Life by former Navy SEAL Clint Emerson to your library today and get on the path to independence and self-sufficiency.”—Jack Carr, Navy SEAL Sniper and #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Devil’s Hand

Clint Emerson is the go-to expert for surviving the first minutes, hours, and days of a crisis. Now, in The Rugged Life, he works with modern homesteading experts to show you how to thrive over the long-term—for months, years, or even a lifetime—by being prepared and self-sufficient. 

You can live the Rugged Life completely off-the-grid by farming your own food and using the waste from your toilet for compost. Or, you can live it by adding solar panels to your suburban home and keeping chickens and bees in your backyard. You can even live the Rugged Life in a city by simply gathering the salad for tonight’s dinner from your windowsill garden. Each of these homesteading and prepper long-term survival skills stand on their own, and taken together, they can help you design the independent life you want for yourself and your family.

• Be your own homesteader: Make your own shampoo and face creams; pickle and ferment food; make natural bug spray and cleaning products; smoke meat; tan a hide.
• Be your own protector: Create a last-resort emergency plan; gather medicinal plants; protect against dangerous animals and threats; understand survival first aid.
• Be your own provider: Hunt for game; make a gillnet; set snares; forage for wild foods; build a rabbit hutch; ice fish; butcher a pig; keep bees.
• Be your own builder: Retrofit a van; set up solar, micohydro, and geothermal power; create a water catchment and filtration system; build a shipping container home.
• Be your own farmer: Grow a victory garden; build a greenhouse; waffle garden to save space and resources; build a root cellar; can, dry, and store crops; operate a tractor 

With hundreds of step-by-step, illustrated, self-sustaining skills and projects, The Rugged Life is for everyone who feels they can use more adventure, freedom, and choice in their life—everyone ready to get out of their comfort zone and try new, hard, profoundly rewarding things.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of illustrations from the book

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Clint Emerson (P)2022 Random House Audio

Great advice and sound guidance

This book is a wonderful primer for those who are considering homesteading and becoming more self reliant.
Clint lays out a way of looking at the process. It provides a unique view that includes several levels of commitment.
Detailed description of “how to” are a helpful reference for beginner and those with more experience.

Gives a Better Baseline

Gives you knowledge to dive in and succeed. Prepares you to research and think differently.

Great material, below average recording

Great material. Clint has a good voice, and is easy to understand, but the rate of speech and editing of this recording is below average. Too much splicing together of sentences.

Homesteading: Choose Your Own Adventure

The book gives the reader permission to dip his toes in the world of homesteading and prepping without full committal, encouraging readers to venture only as far as they feel comfortable. Coming from a former SEAL, I found this vacillating tone disappointing, but not so much as to drop a star from the rating. I suspect his mostly-supportive wife has drawn the red line at a running water toilet, and he must write himself around this issue so as not appear hypocritical.

The author quotes Emerson often enough to constitute a double feature—clearly he is an admirer. I’ve always thought of Emerson and Thoreau as posers and hopeless dreamers, but perhaps that’s my Southern heritage talking. Nevertheless, his mild obsession proved no more than a minor distraction.

Overall, the book was both informative and entertaining. The narration wasn’t stellar, but proved to be on the better end of “read by the author” experiences.

Choppy reading

Clint’s narration was a bit choppy, like he was reading medication instructions to a grandparent.

Great information.

This book isn't exactly what was expecting, that being said it is full of great information for someone who is looking to be more or completely self sufficient. I do think I will have to pick up a copy in paperback when it becomes available.

maybe it's better with the PDF

what really motivated this review is how I'm pretty sure at a certain point he starts talking way slowly, presumably to stretch it out longer than it needed to be.

other than that I just felt like it was missing any insight from Clint's experience and was just like a textbook recitation of information I'm sure is available elsewhere.

Awesome

All of his books are fantastic.extremely useful and informative. I Highly recommend this one and all of his others.

Awesome!

As always, tons of info. Easy to listen to, included PDF is a great reference. Highly recommend.