As I’ve gotten older, I’ve transitioned more toward literary works for my primary information sources. They are significantly more reliable than other methods of gathering knowledge like the unreliable mainstream media. I’ve read quite a few survival books in my time, and I know there is a demand for them in both the prepper groups and the general knowledge circles. For this reason, I’ve combined my top 3 best survival books ever written for preppers here.
My Top 3 Best Survival Books
Here there are in no particular order:
- The Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide: Emergency Preparedness for ANY Disaster
- The Prepper’s Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for Disaster
- US Army Survival Manual: FM 21-76
We’ll go through why I picked these three below.
The Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide
This unique medical book is meant to enable the average person to handle injuries and illness in situations in which modern medical facilities and professionals aren’t available due to a disaster.
This book is written by America’s top medical preparedness experts: Joe Alton, MD, and Amy Alton, ARNP. Their mission: to put a medically prepared person in every family for when medical help is not on the way.Using decades of medical experience, they address, in plain language, dozens of medical issues associated with surviving disasters and epidemics.
The Altons also discuss the medical supplies needed to become a medical asset to your family and community as well as alternative and natural strategies for when pharmaceuticals aren’t available.
Most medical books will send you to the doctor or hospital when an emergency happens. The Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide assumes what might actually happen—that the average person could be left without medical help in a disaster.With this unique book, you’ll have a head start on keeping your family healthy in times of trouble.
This is simply one of the best-selling survivalist medical books of all time. And for a reason, it’s the best. It covers medical emergencies, which are arguably the biggest thing preppers need to learn about and train for.
You can go purchase one of the Top 5 Best Survival First Aid Kits, but it will not do you any good without knowledge of how to use it.
Out of all the books about survivalism and prepping you could read, this one would do you the most benefit. It is just good to have medical knowledge throughout your day-to-day life, anyway. An extra can of stocked goods won’t provide the same level of benefit.
For these reasons, we have to have a medical book in the Top 3. And this is the best one out there for survivalist-minded individuals. Plus, it’s pretty fun to read too. Not nearly as dry as other “doomsday” preparedness books.
The Prepper’s Pocket Guide
BE PREPARED
BE SAFE
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:
#6 Make a Master List of Passwords
#16 Calculate How Much Water You Need
#33 Start a Food Storage Plan for $5 a Week
#60 Make a Safe from a Hollowed-out Book
#77 Assemble an Inexpensive First Aid kit
#89 Learn to Cook Without Electricity
#94 Pack a Bug-out Bag
What we need next in a Top 3 list is a book that covers the essentials in-depth. I had fought a lot over whether to include SAS Survival Handbook or The Preppers Pocket Guide here, but inevitably chose the pocket guide.
The pocket guide simply contains every piece of common knowledge you’d want to know in-depth. SAS has too much information, it is too spread out, and without as much detail. This book is still quite large, but dedicates itself only to the essentials and explains the logic behind the list well.
Additionally, the book includes something unique: a lot of actually beneficial tips. Not just “information” but rather things you can use in your everyday life to prepare. It also covers everything from a large-scale disaster to something like a flood or a hurricane. It is much more on par with my prepping and survivalism for less insane people, rather than hardcore, do-everything-like-a-crazy-person prepper. Yet, it still covers enough to satisfy those type of survivalists as well.
While it may not include over 150 survival and prepping items to stock, it gets close with its tips and recommendations. It’s the perfect book to get everyone on the same page with survivalism and to make it much easier and more manageable. You won’t have to struggle to understand everything in the world of survival after purchasing this book. So, easily a top 3.
US Army Survival Manual
Army Survival Manual is the finest single source for self-reliance for all extreme circumstances. A must for anyone who wants to know how to survive in primitive conditions.
The book is very straightforward with many pictures and user-friendly illustrations, written in easy to understand language.
This is just some of the survival information that this book provides:
All-climates: arctic, tropics, temperate forest, savannah or desert.
All-terrain survival tactics.
The Will to Survive.
Identify poisonous snakes, as well as edible and non-edible plants.
Survival Medicine.
Wilderness medicine.
Techniques on first aid.
Survival in the hottest or coldest of climates. Survival Planning.
Make polluted water potable.
How to find water.
Ways to trap and collection techniques of water.
Covers navigation and compass use.
Find direction using the sun and stars.
Weapons and Tools.
Recognizing signs of land when lost at sea.
Building life-saving shelters.
Traps and snares.
How to prepare wild game to be cooked also preserving food.
All types of fire making.
Water Crossings.
Find direction using the sun and stars.
Physical and mental fitness. Disaster preparedness.
Again this is just some of the survival information is this book!
Any “Top X” list for survival books that doesn’t include the US Army Survival Guide should immediately be tossed out as liars. This is the world’s most powerful army we’re talking about. They have studied how to survive in harsh conditions while under any circumstances for centuries. Using actual real-life examples and careful historical study of past civilizations and wars.
I also like this book because it goes into the psychological aspect, which most prepper books do not address. You’d be hard pressed to find a book that deals with will power as well as the Army’s survival guide.
While the US army may not agree with my stance on inflation (it’s literally just a tax on savings), they do know how to survive. They’ve been doing it for centuries, and acquiring hegemony during the process. Don’t waste your time with survivalist-specific books, especially if you’re a beginner. Buy it from the official sources first.
Wrap-up: The Top 3 Best Survival Books Ever Written For Preppers
In summary, we have:
- The best medical book for survivalists (Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide)
- The best general prepper information book (Pocket Guide for Preppers)
- The authority text on survival (US Army Survival Guide)
Instead of reading 20 different survival books, you could grab these 3 and be set for life. In combination with each other, they cover practically everything you could hope to learn about survival in any conditions.
The most important thing for preppers is to increase your knowledge and stock up. These books will give you that knowledge and teach you everything else you could do to set yourself up for future success.
If you have any recommendations for other books, feel free to drop them in the comments below!
