Reading is a good way to expand one’s knowledge. Your reading list should be diverse, though. Novels and literary books are surely entertaining but you also need to absorb useful life-saving information. Survival books provide valuable information and tips on how to deal with various emergencies.
Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival
David Canterbury is a renowned survival expert who co-owns The Pathfinder School in Ohio, one of the top survival schools. The former U.S. Army sergeant starred in a couple of survival reality TV shows on Disney Channel and National Geographic Channel. Canterbury also authored a number of books on survival. The most popular of his writings and one of the best-selling survival books around is Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival.
The New York Times Best Seller details skills and tips you need to know in order to survive the great outdoors. Canterbury based his teachings on the Five C’s of Survivability — cutting tool, combustion device, covering, container, and cordage. With these five in mind, he developed various survival techniques to deal with a variety of situations. These skills not only increase your chances of survival, they also help you reconnect with nature.
It helps that Canterbury wrote his book straightforwardly to make it easier for the readers to understand. Plus, the diversity of skills and techniques covering different scenarios are on their own which makes Bushcraft 101 one of the top survival books you certainly must read.
100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative’s Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation
Navy SEALS are some of the baddest people to ever walk this earth. Just thinking of the training they have to undergo to be able to take down the likes of Osama bin Laden makes you want to build a temple for them or something.
While not everyone is built to be a Navy SEAL, you can at least learn some of the skills they have mastered. This is thanks to people like Clint Emerson. The retired Navy SEAL shares some incredibly useful survival skills in his book 100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative’s Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation.
His book teaches some valuable life-saving lessons such as evasion tactics, self-defense tips, and other skills that deal with different kinds of threats to your safety.
Emerson holds the distinction of being the only Navy SEAL inducted into the International Spy Museum. Aside from being a bestselling author, he also guides clients on crisis management and provides security solutions through his company, Escape the Wolf, LLC. In other words, he knows what he’s talking about.
The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies
The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies is a must-read survival book for people looking to acquire skills that can help them become more self-sustainable. Herbalism is also a vital skill to have in a dystopian future.
If or when things get apocalyptic bad, the electrical grid is expected to go kaput. That means hospitals and other medical facilities will likely become useless. Companies will also cease producing medicines and medical equipment.
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In this scenario, you have to make do with what you have. Hopefully, plants are still thriving so you can make herbal medicines. The Lost Book of Remedies by Dr. Nicole Apelian and Claude Davis will point you in the right direction.
You don’t need a background in herbalism to fully understand this book. It contains colored photos of more than a hundred plants, lichens, and mushrooms so you can identify them easily. It also explains how to make the remedies step by step so you don’t get confused.
The book also details 550 different natural medicines that can be used for healing a variety of ailments. It tackles mild medical issues like stress and insomnia to slightly severe ones such as the common cold and inflammation.
SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere
If you want to learn as much as you can in just one source material, the SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere by John “Lofty” Wiseman is a good choice. Most survival books focus on wilderness survival. Others concentrate on preparing for disasters. This survival book does not put limits on what you can learn.
Wiseman, a former survival instructor for Britain’s Special Air Service, uses everything he knows to teach mere mortals what to do in the face of danger. The SAS Survival Handbook discusses a wide range of topics and scenarios giving you a better chance of surviving any threat or predicament.
The 672-page SAS Handbook tackles the usual stuff such as preparing and surviving in the great outdoors as well as in an urban setting. Readers are thought how to make camp, build emergency shelters, find food, navigate, and survive different terrains and climates. It takes a huge step further by also tackling self-defense, home intrusion, terrorist attacks, and technological disasters, among other scenarios.
Prepper’s Long-Term Survival Guide: Food, Shelter, Security, Off-the-Grid Power, and More Life-Saving Strategies for Self-Sufficient Living
So you finally came to your senses and now want to know everything about prepping. You’re not alone. A lot of people finally understand the importance of being prepared after the whole world was caught by surprise by the coronavirus pandemic.
Lucky for you newbies, there are lots of survival books that will help you start your prepping journey. Plus, there are veteran preppers that are more than willing to share their knowledge. So find someone to take you under their wings while also reading up on prepping as much as you can.
Start with the Prepper’s Long-Term Survival Guide: Food, Shelter, Security, Off-the-Grid Power and More Life-Saving Strategies for Self-Sufficient Living by Jim Cobb. The author is a prepper of 20 years who’s been sharing his know-how through DisasterPrepConsultants.com and SurvivalWeekly.com. He has also authored two more books on the subject, namely Prepper’s Home Defense and Prepper’s Complete Guide to Disaster Readiness.
Prepper’s Long Term Survival Guide contains easy-to-understand tips on how to prepare your family and home for any kind of emergency. It not only discusses what to do before and during a disaster. The book also deals with the possibility that the catastrophe or its effects extend to months and even years.
Some of the long-term survival tips Cobb shares in the book include growing, foraging, and hunting for food. He also details how you can collect and sterilize water in the event that the water grid goes down. The book even talks about how to bury a corpse, which is gruesome but important since funeral homes likely won’t operate anymore or will have their hands full.
The MeatEater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival
You may have seen MeatEater on Netflix. The host of the TV show, Steven Rinella, is the same person who wrote The MeatEater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival. It’s nice to know that he’s spreading his knowledge through different mediums. That way, more people will better their chances of surviving emergencies and disasters.
The New York Times Bestseller is a thorough guide on surviving the wild. It talks about skills necessary to explore and survive the wilderness including old-school navigation, purifying water, and building survival kits.
The book also puts a premium on survival kits. It lists in detail everything you will need on your outdoor excursion. Some survival must-haves Rinella discussed in his book include a water purification system, headlamp, backup light, compass, whistle, a fire-starting kit with lighters, cotton balls slathered in Vaseline, and slivers of heartwood.
Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide to Over 200 Natural Foods
One needs to eat in order to survive. When grocery stores and home deliveries are no longer options, you need to know how to find your own food. Aside from growing crops, fishing, and hunting, you should also know how to forage.
Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide to Over 200 Natural Foods is a valuable source material for learning about foraging, particularly in North America. The book lists over 200 species of edible plants.
It’s a good idea to read this book thoroughly before going on a North American backpacking adventure. In fact, you should bring a copy so you can use it to identify the plants you stumble upon. This should be a better way to learn about edible plants. More importantly, you’ll need this knowledge in case you get lost and run out of food.
What makes Edible Wild Plants one of the most popular survival books around are the photographs. Some books give you lame photos of plants but this one took things seriously. The book is filled with around 400 colorful photos of edible plants arranged by season and region. It’s certainly easier and more inspiring to read.
Survival Hacks: Over 200 Ways to Use Everyday Items for Wilderness Survival
Back in the day, TV viewers were left in awe after watching Angus MacGyver hack his way out of trouble. Some of his brilliant hacks seem theatrical and unbelievable but most actually work in real life. This just shows how ingenious humans are.
You may not notice it but you’ve been hacking your way through life. The Survival Hacks: Over 200 Ways to Use Everyday Items for Wilderness Survival by Creek Stewart is here to make sure you continue to enjoy that life.
Creek Stewart is a well-known name in the field of survival and prepping. Aside from Survival Hacks, he also wrote the popular Build the Perfect Bug Out book series. He can be seen on the boob tube via the Weather Channel and Fat Guys in the Woods. Creek is also the owner of Willow Haven Outdoor Survival Training Schools, one of MSN Travel’s “Top 10 Survival Schools.”
The book contains more than 200 survival hacks such as making a gas mask out of a soup can and fashioning a fishing lure from a credit card. You’ll definitely have fun making survival tools out of ordinary items.
When the Grid Goes Down: Disaster Preparations and Survival Gear For Making Your Home Self-Reliant
During a disaster, there’s always the fear of the power grid going down. When that happens expect the internet and the water grid to follow suit. Can you imagine a world where you can’t post a new photo on Instagram or share a meme on Facebook?
As horrendous as that may sound, it’s more important to prepare for the loss of power and running water. Tony Nester shares some specific steps to ensure that you survive such a situation in his book When the Grid Goes Down: Disaster Preparations and Survival Gear For Making Your Home Self-Reliant.
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Nester discusses how you can survive the first 72 hours after a disaster strikes. He went further and dove into the ways you can survive long-term in case things don’t go back to normal immediately. Some disaster preparedness topics he tackled include self-sufficiency, food and water storage, home security, personal defense, and sanitation among others.
Nester is certainly no stranger to the field. He founded Ancient Pathways, one of the top survival schools in the country. He has trained and taught US Marshals, FAA, Homeland Security, and the National Transportation and Safety Board. Nester was also a technical consultant for the film Into The Wild.
Survivor Kid: A Practical Guide to Wilderness Survival
March 2 is National Read Across America Day. This should be a good opportunity to introduce your children to survival books. Survivor Kid: A Practical Guide to Wilderness Survival by Denise Long should be a good start for slightly older kids.
Long is a wilderness survival class instructor who also works as a licensed private investigator and is a certified Crime Analyst. She used to be a search and rescue (SAR) professional, an FBI fraud investigator, a crisis counselor, a correctional officer, and a deputy probation officer. The well-rounded author also trains German Shepherds to help in search and rescue. All these feathers in her cap should give you a clue that her book is worth the read.
The Survivor Kid will teach the young ones survival techniques they can use when they are outdoors. They’ll learn how to build shelters, start a fire, gather and sterilize water, and other survival skills.
It’s never too early to teach them the value of survival skills. In fact, the sooner they take interest in the craft the more it becomes second nature to them. This should give you a little comfort knowing they can take care of themselves.
Book lovers have a treasure trove of data in their brains from reading so much. They’ll probably blurt out bits of information or useless trivia during a conversation leaving the other person in awe. One needs to take full advantage of this passion and include survival books in their reading list.
Don’t limit yourselves to the survivor books we have listed down here. Take the time to look for more reading materials and other sources. Do some research until you have a complete grasp of what it takes to survive each and every scenario you can think of. Include Gentleman Pirate Club in your reading or mailing list. You can find lots of blog posts about survival and prepping among other useful topics.
