What you learn from reading survival books can teach you how to live after a major meltdown or disaster, or even save your life. Not everyone has the time to learn everything they need to survive, but books can teach you about gardening, canning, dehydrating, hunting, and camping, as well as how to identify wild edible and medicinal plants, and how to survive in the wild. The time to acquire these books and build your prep library is now, before the poo fades away.
The first book you should get is the SAS Survival Manual, perhaps one of the best survival books to throw in your bag or backpack. It contains information on how to start a fire, how to build a wilderness survival shelter, how to build an animal trap, and even basic first aid.
expert books
You are not likely to find a book that will give you all the answers to your questions and once you have read a book you will realize how much more there is to learn. Here are some great books to add to your prep library.
- Gardening per square foot
- Garden of Rodele Answers
- The backyard farm by Carleen Madigan
- Return to basic
- Seed Starter Manual
- herbal healing – Penelope Cody
You don’t have to buy most of these new books. In fact, you’d be surprised how well you can build a survival preparedness library by shopping at thrift stores, flea markets, and garage sales. Check through those piles of used books, which often sell for $1 or less, for books on:
- first aid
- Home remedies
- Health care
- Field Surgery
- Identification of animals and birds.
- skills of yesteryear
- Gardening
- Camping
- wilderness survival
- Building
- raising animals
- animal husbandry
- Pregnancy and labor
- homeschool textbooks
survival fiction
Not all of the best survival books are non-fiction and written as instructions. Instead, they are fictional stories about life during and after an apocalyptic event. Just because it’s fiction, you’ll find that sometimes the best information can be found in survival fiction novels. These writers have done the research, or even have the experience and training to share their knowledge in an easy-to-read way.
You can find fiction books that teach you how to survive:
- an economic collapse
- urban survival tactics
- Natural disasters
- Anarchy or breakdown of law and order
- Outdoor survival in different climates and geographical locations.
- A nuclear, biological, chemical or other attack
Some of the recommended titles include:
oh babylon by Pat Frank – Set in the 1950s, this was one of the first novels to deal with survival after a nuclear war.
patriots by James Wesley Rawles – One of the best books on survival dealing with the conditions resulting from an economic collapse and subsequent anarchy.
a second later by William R. Forstchen – An illuminating look at what could happen in a small American town when all power goes out after an EMP.
wolf and iron by Gordon Dickson – Following a total collapse of law and order, followed by a mass death of the population, a young man heads across the country to find a distant relative. Instead, he finds himself, a wolf for a mate, a wife, and learns blacksmithing, a trade vital to his survival.
the end of the era by Pat Robertson – For a different look at a biblical explanation of what could happen in the future
paw fiction
Found primarily online, the term PAW fiction includes a plethora of short stories and even entire e-books about surviving and living in a “post-apocalyptic world.” The good news is that most of these stories are free to download and will provide you with not only hours of reading, but also an education in many aspects of survival in a wide range of disaster scenarios. The most prolific of these authors are:
- jerry d young
- fletaxi
- tired old man
So whether you prefer to read a book, hold the book in your hand, or enjoy the convenience of an e-reader, you can build a prep library for very little money, but it just might give you the information you’ll need to survive.