Ultimate Preppers Reading List
Here it is, Bug Out Bag Builder's Ultimate Preppers Reading List. We've dug through the best of the best and assembled them all here. We will be updating it regularly to keep up with the latest additions. This list includes books focusing on a huge variety of subjects, we've tried to break it into categories as best we could so you could quickly find what you are looking for. Get more information, and get prepared!
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General Preparedness Books
Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag
by Creek Stewart (Betterway Books, 2012)
This book shows you how to create a self-contained disaster preparedness kit to help you survive your journey from ground zero to a safer location. Survival expert Creek Stewart details from start to finish everything you need to gather for 72 hours of independent survival--water, food, protection, shelter, survival tools, and so much more. Read our in-depth review here.
The Preppers Pocket Guide
by Bernie Carr (Ulysses Press, 2011)
From California earthquakes and Rocky Mountain wildfires to Midwest floods and Atlantic hurricanes, you can't escape that inevitable day when catastrophe strikes your home town ? but you can be prepared! Offering a simple DIY approach, this book breaks down the vital steps you should take into 101 quick, smart and inexpensive projects.
Build the Perfect Survival Kit
by John D. McCann (Living Ready, 2013)
When an unexpected emergency situation rears its ugly head, will you be up to the challenge? "I wasn't prepared for that!" will no longer be a valid response with the survival-kit-building methods in this book from survival expert John McCann. This fully revised and expanded second edition includes all new information for building bug out bags, get-home bags and vehicle kits that are fully customized to meet your family's specific survival needs.
Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook
by Peggy Layton (Clarkson Potter, 2002)With this guide by your side, you and your family will learn how to plan, purchase, and store a three-month supply of all the necessities?food, water, fuel, first-aid supplies, clothing, bedding, and more?simply and economically. In other words, this book may be a lifesaver.
The Prepper's Complete Book of Disaster Readiness
by Jim Cobb (Ulysses Press, 2013)
Hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, floods, earthquakes: disaster can strike suddenly, leaving a wake of chaos much too big for emergency responders to handle. The action plan presented in The Prepper's Complete Book of Disaster Readiness is the key to riding out the aftermath of a crisis when the power grid is down, supplies are running short, and anarchy is the rule of the day.
With detailed information on storing food, securing and strengthening a house, drafting emergency contingency plans, preparing children, packing bug-out bags, and even setting up an off-site survival retreat, this book is the ultimate bible of disaster preparation.
The Unofficial Hunger Games Wilderness Survival Guide
by Creek Stewart (Living Ready Books, 2013)
Train like a Tribute before you enter the Arena using this wilderness survival guide--you don't have to live in Panem to put these survival skills to use. Experience the adventure of life in District 12 by learning and practicing the survival skills used by Katniss, Peeta, Gale and their friends.
SAS Survival Handbook, 3rd Edition
by John 'Lofty' Wiseman (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2014)
Revised to reflect the latest in survival knowledge and technology, and covering new topics such as urban survival and terrorism, the internationally bestselling SAS Survival Handbook is the definitive resource for all campers, hikers, and outdoor adventurers.
From basic campcraft and navigation to fear management and strategies for coping with any type of disaster, this complete course includes: being prepared, making camp, food, first aid, disaster survival, self-defense, security, climate and terrain.
The Prepper's Water Survival Guide
by Daisy Luther
You can survive up to three weeks without food, but only three days without water! When catastrophe strikes, having enough water can spell the difference between life and death. The Prepper's Water Survival Guide offers a step-by-step plan with straightforward information you can easily follow.
Thanks to this books laser-focus on water, you'll quickly learn how to: Store fresh water, Collect rainwater, Purify water from lakes & rivers, Dig a well for groundwater. In addition to harvesting water, you?ll gain the tools to keep large stores untainted for long periods of time, test the water you collect for dangerous toxins, and treat water-related illnesses that are commonly contracted during a disaster.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 40th Anniversary Edition
by Carla Emery
The bestselling resource for modern homesteading, growing and preserving foods, and raising chickens,The Encyclopedia of Country Living includes how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, can peaches, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, build a chicken coop, catch a pig, cook on a wood stove, and much, much more.
This comprehensive resource is the most authoritative guide available to a sustainable lifestyle and living off of the land.
Security and Defense
100 Deadly Skills
by Clint Emerson (Touchstone, 2015)
100 Deadly Skills contains proven self-defense skills, evasion tactics, and immobilizing maneuvers?modified from the world of black ops?to help you take action in numerous ?worst case? scenarios from escaping a locked trunk, to making an improvised Taser, to tricking facial recognition software. With easy-to-understand instructions and illustrations, Emerson outlines in detail many life-saving strategies and teaches you how to think and act like a member of the special forces.
Prepper's Home Defense
by Jim Cobb (Ulysses Press, 2012)
Does your disaster preparation plan include security measures? When civilization fails and the desperate masses begin looting, they will come for your food, water and life-sustaining supplies. This book shows you how to implement a complete plan for operational security and physical defense, including: Perimeter Security Systems and Traps, House Fortifications and Safe Rooms, Secured and Hidden Storage, Firearms and Defensive Combat Techniques, Gathering Intelligence and Forming Alliances.
Holding Your Ground
by Joe Nobody (PrepperPress.com, 2011)
HOLDING YOUR GROUND is an instructional guide and planning tool that addresses defensive preparation of a location. If the government can no longer protect your home, farm or property, HOLDING will teach you how. HOLDING covers virtually every aspect of protecting you and your family in the event society breaks down.
Many people have preparations for food, water, shelter and personal defense. HOLDING will teach you how to configure your home, train your team, and properly equip any location for defense. Covering topics ranging from hiding in plain sight to pre-positioning of supplies, HOLDING uses common sense, military tactics and historical examples that allow you to prepare for defense without affecting your property's value or appearance.
Medical and First Aid
Medicinal Plants of North America: A Field Guide
by Jim Meuninck (Falcon Guides, 2008)
This detailed full-color field guide, provides identification, practical information, and skills for the location of and use of medicinal plants. Each of the 122 plants has a color photograph, plant description, and location. Identification of plants are grouped from common to rare in the environment and where they are found: prairies, woodlands, mountains, deserts, and wetlands. Relevant facts about each plant such as toxicity, historical uses, modern uses, as well as wildlife/veterinary uses are also listed.
PDR for Herbal Medicines
by Thomson Healthcare (Thomson Reuters, 2007)
This definitive guide to current herbal remedies includes more than 700 monographs complete with scientific and common names, indications, and usage. Featured are clinical studies results, when available, and usage in Chinese, Indian, and homeopathic medicine, when applicable.
The guide also includes information on possible interactions with prescription drugs, and the management of those interactions and is fully indexed for easy use.
The Survival Medicine Handbook
by Joseph Alton (Doom and Bloom, 2013)
The Survival Medicine Handbook is not your standard first aid book. It assumes that no hospital or doctor is available in the aftermath of a catastrophic event. This book will give you the tools to handle injuries and illness for when YOU might be the end of the line with regards to your family's medical well-being.
In circumstances where medical personnel are overwhelmed and access to modern technology is limited or non-existent, The Survival Medicine Handbook is the essential reference book for every library. Written in plain English, you'll find step-by-step instructions on how to identify and treat over 100 different medical issues.
Where There Is No Doctor
by David Werner
Useful for health workers, clinicians, and others involved in primary health care delivery and health promotion programs, with millions of copies in print in more than 75 languages, the manual provides practical, easily understood information on how to diagnose, treat, and prevent common diseases.
Special attention is focused on nutrition, infection and disease prevention, and diagnostic techniques as primary ways to prevent and treat health problems.
Where There is No Dentist
by Murray Dickson
Community health workers, educators and individuals from around the world use Where There Is No Dentist to help people care for their teeth and gums. This book's broad focus makes it an invaluable resource.
The author uses straightforward language and careful instructions to explain how to: examine patients, diagnose common dental problems, make and use dental equipment, use local anesthetics, place fillings and remove teeth.
Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook
by US Dept of Defense (Skyhorse Publishing, 2011)
The newest edition of the Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook is perfect and practical for both soldiers and civilians. Nearly 140 comprehensive illustrations show the proper techniques for medical care, from basic first-aid and orthopedics to instructions for emergency war surgery and even veterinary medicine.
Questions are listed so that the medic can obtain an accurate patient history and perform a complete physical examination. Diagnoses are made easier with information on the distinctive features of each illness. This straightforward manual is sure to assist any reader faced with a medical issue or emergency.
Bushcrafting
Wildwood Wisdom
by Ellsworth Jaeger (Shelter Publications, 1992)
This historical guide, originally written in 1945, includes information on making fires, canoeing, using axes and knives, and crafting shelters from hand-gathered materials. Readers also learn about clothing, gear, and useful plants. This book also is an account of life in the 1800s, when survival in the wild depended on one's skill and ingenuity.
Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival
by Mors Kochanski (Lone Pine, 2016)
Clear instructions, extensive use of diagrams, and a full color photo supplement detail all the practical skills and knowledge essential for surviving and enjoying the wilderness. Includes basic instructions for lighting and maintaining a fire, chopping wood and felling trees, creating a warm shelter, using knives and axes safely, finding plants and animals important for survival, cooking in the outdoors, and making tools, ropes, baskets, and more from plant materials.
Shelters, Shacks and Shanties
by D. C. Beard (Dover Publications, 2004)
This excellent hands-on guide by one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America contains a wealth of practical instruction and advice on how to build everything from a bark teepee and a tree-top house to a log cabin and a sod house. No professional architects are needed here; and knowing how to use an axe is more important than possessing carpentry skills.
More than 300 of the author's own illustrations and a clear, easy-to-follow text enable campers to create such lodgings as half-cave shelters, beaver mat huts, birch bark shacks, over-water camps, a Navajo hogan, and a pole house. Additional chapters provide information on how to use an axe, split and notch logs, make a fireplace, and even build appropriate gateways to log houses, game preserves, ranches, and other open areas.
Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game
by John J Mettler
This guide takes the mystery out of butchering, covering everything you need to know to produce your own expert cuts of beef, venison, pork, lamb, poultry, and small game. John J. Mettler Jr. provides easy-to-follow instructions that walk you through every step of the slaughtering and butchering process, as well as plenty of advice on everything from how to dress game in a field to salting, smoking, and curing techniques. You?ll soon be enjoying the satisfyingly superior flavors that come with butchering your own meat.
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