Here's 30+ Books on Prepping and Survival, with Reviews and Recommendations

Part 2: More books, refined thoughts.

Here's 30+ Books on Prepping and Survival, with Reviews and Recommendations
Photo by Marc Szeglat on Unsplash

Every single day, you see more signs of collapse.

One day, it’s the worst wildfires in a state’s history. The next, record snowstorms. After that, a record tornado season. Then come the heat waves and the hurricanes. All the while, diseases make their biggest comebacks in a century. Governments respond by dismantling the very agencies we created to help us, manufacturing crises like trade wars and nuclear standoffs, and working overtime to ban everything from vaccines to medications. Then they get up in front of a bunch of clueless politicians and lie about their intentions.

Recently, I started trying to gather up a list of books and other documents we would want to have on hand in case of a disaster or prolonged grid failure. I think we’re going to need books on just about everything.

It’s been an interesting experience.

When you ask people what books they’d want on hand for survival, you get a lot of vague references to first aid manuals and farming guides. There’s just one problem with that. There’s literally thousands of them out there, and not all of them are worth your time. So, I decided to take up the challenge. So far, I’ve reviewed more than 30 books. I’m organizing them by category, and I’m also making notes about my evolving plan for collapse as I work through them.

This batch of reviews builds on the first one, and it includes books written for those of us staying in more (sub)urban settings. Even if you’re not especially optimistic about your odds, there’s a lot you can do before you give up and sit around waiting to die. As I work on this list, I’m also stressing that survival isn’t just for the “fittest.” Our collapse plans should include everyone, because everyone has value, and everyone can contribute, no matter how bad things get.

I’m taking recommendations for specific books (so drop them in the comments).

Let’s get into it.

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