Survival Books

When disaster strikes, it may leave you and your family completely unprepared for the situation and circumstances ahead. We rely heavily on what our local infrastructure provides, such as running water, electricity, and other services. Education by reading up on survival techniques will serve you well should disaster strike. Learning from the experts by reading various handbooks about survival is the highly recommended.

Wilderness Survival by David J. Davenport (Stackpole Books, 2006) is one handbook that has well-defined explanations and illustrations. Author and survival expert Gregory J. Davenport explains the basic elements of survival in the wilderness: Personal protection, signaling, locating food and water sources, travel, and maintaining good health. The book provides you with all the information in which to stay calm and alive under extreme circumstances.

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht (Chronicle Books,1999) is a handbook covers a range of survival subjects with a humorous twist. The book addresses how to deal with almost every danger imaginable from exploding volcanoes, sharks about to attack, to being stuck in quicksand. This book explains how to deal with the situation quickly in a step-by-step format. There are illustrated instructions on all that you need to know about defusing a bomb to delivering babies.

US Army Survival Guide (FM 21-76) by the US Department of Defense is the civilian version of actual Army survival book. This is a straight-forward manual on survival that is written in "easy to understand" language and is a source of information on self reliance in extreme circumstances. This is an excellent reference for anyone facing dire circumstances in the most primitive scenarios. There are pictures and illustrations, accompanied by information on surviving in a number of different environments: Arctic, tropics, temperate forest, savannah, and desert. The book also addresses important survival tactics such as maintaining the will to survive, identifying poisonous snakes, as well as identifying edible and non-edible plants. Wilderness medicine, first aid, and survival planning are reviewed in detail. The book has much more to read about on the subject of survival.

Ultimately, the most informed people subject to dire circumstances in a disaster are most likely to survive because of their education. Knowing how to save themselves and their families requires an ability to locate the basic necessities for sustaining life in a timely manner. Locating water, food, shelter, keeping one's senses under stress, signaling for help, navigating to safety, and more is all part of disaster planning.