Jungle

'Jungle' is a classic adventure book in the spirit of 'The Treasure of Sierra Madre' and 'Heart of Darkness'. Based on a real-life adventure, this story of survival deals with two central themes:  what does a man become once civilisation is left behind, and the struggle to survive the elements of the natural world.

What the players on the popular survival shows go through is nothing compared to what the author of this book went through to survive in the Amazon jungle! Yossi Ghinsberg set out with three other men to experience a real jungle, and for sure, encountered incredible plant and animal life. But it didn't stop there. When the foursome split into two groups, Yossi and his companion then became separated when Yossi was swept away down the powerful Tuichi River. At that point, Yossi was on his own, and narrates his awesome struggle for survival...to find food and shelter, and to combat such things as the fungus that was eating his feet, jaguars, fireants, termites that carpeted his body and bored into it, and steep, slippery cliffs. Whew! I am reading the book a second time, this time to my teenage children, to give them an appreciation for what true suffering is, and to help them realize that humans can, with motivation and determination, endure and overcome great obstacles. When we start complaining about our daily irritations, this is the kind of book we need to read to help us consider our blessings.

A real page-turner, with all of the elements of a great adventure saga, Heart of the Amazon could prove to be the from-out-of-nowhere best-seller of the season.

When four men met in La Paz, they couldn't know that their decision to trek through uncharted territory in Bolivia would have a horrifying outcome.

At the time, Ghinsberg was a young Israeli who had rejected the comforts of a predictable life and had opted instead for an extended road trip through South America. Before it was over, he would survive near-starvation, a vicious attack by termites, the evils of quicksand, and other amazing perils over a period of three weeks--alone and lost in a remote Bolivian rain forest.

Marcus, a Swiss, and the mysterious Austrian, Karl, would never be heard from again. But Kevin Gale, an American, enlisted the aid of the local Takana-Quetchua Indians to rescue his lost friend. Ghinsberg, who since has returned to Tuichi and made it his home, first wrote his book in Hebrew.

It sold 75,000 copies in Israel and was translated into Swedish; it has sold 100,000 copies in Sweden.