A friend asked me for my “must have” list of basic survival reference books. So here are the best from my library, covering survival, medical, food and shelter. This list is by no means complete; what other books would you include here? Please add your own faves to this thread..

All are available from Amazon.com. Most are in paperback, some are available lightly used. And none of these are expensive, considering how priceless this knowledge becomes if you ever really need it….

1) The BOB basics: Must-have at least one of these in your hand-carry pack:

• SAS Survival Handbook, John Wiseman, or

• US Army Survival Manual: FM 21-76 (Hardcover) new edition 2007. NB The paperback edition is the older 1980’s version, still useful but lacks color photos of edible plants, newer technologies, etc. The SAS is more portable.

Plus (highly recommended basics):

• When Technology Fails (Revised & Expanded): A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency, Matthew Stein

Either/Or

• Wilderness Medicine, Beyond First Aid, 5th Edition, William Forgey, M.D.

or

• The American Red Cross First Aid and Safety Handbook by American Red Cross


2) Basic Medical Care (In addition to above)

• Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, Revised 2nd Edition, Murray & Pizzorno

• Any good reprint book on Anatomy. There are several – usually found in the remainders or bargain section of your local book chain. You’d be surprised how useful this knowledge is when dealing with a broken or twisted something.


3) Basic Everything Else


• The Encyclopedia of Country Living, Carla Emerys. The single most useful volume of how-to-do everything from shelter to food to birth, life and death without professional aid. An outright must-have.

Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition Abigail R. Gehring Another superb compendium, well-illustrated and thorough.

4) Food: Growing, Saving, Thriving

Assuming you have some very basic gardening knowledge (or can buy some good basic books), these are still must-have’s for when the going gets tough… (in no particular order)

• The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times, Carol Deppe

• Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series) by Steve Solomon

• The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre, Carleen Madigan

• The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses by Eliot Coleman

• Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman, Barbara Damrosch, Kathy Bray

• Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables, Mike & Nancy Bubell When the power is out, and the Mason jars for canning are unavailable, you’ll need to know how to stash food until the next harvest, won’t you? Best of the tried-and-true techniques

• Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners, Suzanne Ashworth You could have the most fabulous harvest, but you must know how to save the seeds for next season. Indispensible knowledge.

5) Shelter

• Earthbag building: tools, tricks and techniques Kaki Hunter, Donald Kiffemeyer An exceedingly useful guide to constructing durable dwellings out of local earth and sandbags if everything else is kaput – ya never know..!

6) Food Prep Under Duress:

• The Joy of Cooking, Rombauer & Becker
How the heck do you cook a goose? Or a squirrel? Make bread? If you’ve only got one cookbook this is the choice by far, the most comprehensive and useful ever written.

• The Sunny Side of Cooking - Solar cooking and other ecologically friendly cooking methods for the 21st century, Lisa Rayner
And when your power is out long-term, you’ll be really glad to know how to make and use an inexpensive solar cooker (Hint: put aside a roll of aluminum foil and a cardboard box.)

And your faves? Please add.

Cheers,

Selene

Awesome job Selene I have a bunch of these in my wish list, thank you

Apparently this book comes highly reckomended...




One Second After
by William R. Forstchen

This thriller walks you through a fictional story that demonstrates what life would be like if an EMP were to occur. We don’t want to get people too worried about this type of scenario, but instead want everyone to analyze their long term priorities should such an event occur that basically left you to fend for yourself for an extended period of time.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076531 ... 0765317583

Or download here
http://www.scribd.com/doc/31421472/3123 ... cond-After

So is this::

http://www.preparednesspro.com/blog/

Came across another one today



Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook
Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Family Safe in a Crisis

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076156 ... 0761563679

Essential reading and possibly a book to put in the safe archive in the farraday cage safe keep...

Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Living

JOHN and GERY McPherson

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22591619/Ultimate-Guide-to-Wilderness-Living

Thanks for posting this Sky I have downloaded it to my library.

Do you have anymore like this that relate to survival?

I finally got around to looking for some of these books, most of which I found free at Scribd..

Like this one

http://www.scribd.com/doc/15689544/Wint ... ok-Preview

Thanks again for this extensive list Selene!

Sure do L2L - but I will have to spend a bit of time to locate their sources.

Most I find via Scribd though. Once you get past the Upload to Download issues, it's a synch.

Will set some up here sometime.