Self-help ✦ Penny’s Take 🎧 Audiobook
MeatEater's Campfire Stories: Close Calls
Steven Rinella · 2021
🎙 Narrated by Steven Rinella and contributing storytellers (multi-narrator)
67/100
👎 Skip It
These are genuinely hair-raising true outdoor near-misses, and fans of the MeatEater crowd will eat it up, but the format gets repetitive across sixteen similar close calls. The campfire-style narration is engaging enough, though the intensity of some of these stories (including a cartel encounter) means it's an adult pick, and not quite essential.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
▶ Listen to a sample
🎙 Narration: good Rinella hosts a conversational, multi-voice campfire format that fans have responded well to.
🎧 Listen free with an Audible trial ↗ Find it on Audible ↗📚 In print ↗📱 On Kindle ↗ affiliate links · support the site, never the verdict
As an Amazon Associate and Audible affiliate, Penny earns from qualifying purchases. This never affects the verdict — see our affiliate disclosure.
Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
Faith & family safety65
Substance / usefulness68
Craft & writing62
Originality55
Evidence & accuracy75
Hype vs delivers65
Age-fit55
Human-eye read65
Penny’s verdict67
Cross-pollinate