For many survivalists, the view of owning every episode of your favorite survival show on DVD or a downloading a popular survival app on your fancy phone just doesn’t take the place of a real paper book. So, what are the 5 best survival books for your survival library?

To answer this question, just remember there’ll always be some disagreement about content but almost everyone will agree that the successful survivalist worth his salt will have four different kinds of books on his bookshelf (or in his bugout bag) that will keep his skills sharp and keep him learning for the time when things take a turn for the worst.

The four categories of survival books that need to be included should cover all the basics from surviving the next 24 hours to longer term thinking that includes how-to gardening and off-grid living. Below are examples of these types of books.

Wilderness Survival Books

Since almost all wilderness survival skills are the most likely skill-set outdoorsmen will actually use, you should start your library there. I find it’s hard to go wrong with classics like How To Stay Alive In The Woods by Bradford Angier, or the Outdoor Survival Skills of Larry Dean Olsen.

Also, don’t forget Wilderness Living And survival Skills by John and Geri McPhersen, or Mors Kochanski’s Bushcraft. Many of these books are decades old but are still in print because they have stood the test of time.  They never fail to deliver and always provide survival experts and enthusiasts a great beginning checklist to give to those new to the wilderness game.

But, if you’re looking for something with a more contemporary look and feel, you should definitely check out Colin Towell’s The Survival Handbook, and 98.6 Degrees,” by Cody Lundin. Towell’s “handbook” is very complete and addresses a great many survival skills and instructions for surviving in different environments.

Lundin’s “98.6” provides you with a foolproof recipe for a wilderness survival kit by giving you a unique perspective of the physical and psychological elements come into play during a survival scenario.

Urban Survival Books

Because there are so many ways to go in the muddled field of urban survival, many survival experts place When All Hell Breaks Loose by Cody Lundin at the top of their lists because it has the most diverse assortment of modern survival skills that you’ll find in just one book. It deals with shelter, water, fire, food, first aid, communications and a host of other topics but covers mostly disaster survival.

Wild Plant Books

In every survival situation you’ll need to be able to find food and this is why you need a Peterson’s A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants as the minimum requirement for any survival library. Other books are good, like Audobon’s nice full color photo ID books but Newcomb’s and Peterson’s stick to the classic drawing and painting format.

Also, Peterson’s book is small enough and thorough enough to bug out with you and feed you for years (if the edibles are available, that is). Owning a few tree guides and wildflower guides will help out immensely, especially if you need to identify that pesky weed or shrub you keep running into.

However, because so many skills come down to material identification, you don’t want to skip over the tree and plant section in your home survival library.

Homesteader Books

Your survival library should also include books with some good, clean homesteader skills, such as Square Foot Gardening, “The Chicken Tractor,” the “Foxfire” series.

Also, Reader’s Digest “Back to Basics” and so many other books could provide you with an interesting read and give you the skills to better take care of yourself and your family in the event of money troubles, supply chain problems or a full scale Armageddon.

The 5 Best Survival Books You’ll Ever Need

One of these 5 books just might save your life someday. Make sure they’re ready to read in your new survival library.

#1: The Complete Resource for Disaster Planning and Recovery, by Bob Arnot and Mark Cohen. This manual is a simple, easy-to-read book focusing on disaster survival. This book is packed with expert tips and helpful checklists so you can purchase and organize your food, first aid equipment, and supplies.

The book is also broken into three sections that provide advice “Before Disaster Strikes,” “During an Emergency,” and “After the Crisis.” As a bonus, the book comes with a 90-minute disaster preparedness video that the whole family should watch.

#2:The Survival Handbook. by Colin Towell, is exactly what you would expect from the looks of it. From different scenarios to different climates, this big book is a thorough study in all things survival.

The book even covers the global skills you would need to survive in a wide variety of conditions and regions. Even though the skills are the same as the those you would find in a more venerable book, the contemporary writing and illustrations make this book attractive to younger readers.

If you only have enough money to buy one survival manual, this might be the one for you.

#3:Peterson Field Guides: Edible Wild Plants Eastern/Central North America. Every survival library needs a copy of this book, and so does every Bug Out Bag.

This concise book tells you which wild plants to use for salad, tea, root vegetables, and many other foraged foods. The 400 plants described in this book are found throughout the eastern half of the U.S., but many of them can be found growing coast to coast.

This book has all the details and an extensive number of plants that many slick-looking books with color photos are lacking. So, don’t let the black and white line drawings deter you. Never go hungry again with this book in your pocket.

#4:Mountaineering First Aid by Jan Carline, Martha Lentz, and Steven Macdonald is a pocket-sized book on accident response and first aid care, which would fit nicely in a wilderness medical kit.

This book has a number of good checklists, and provides instruction on dealing with many typical outdoor injuries. Ideally, this book should be kept in your medical bag as a reference guide for symptoms and signs of trouble.

#5:Step by Step Projects for Self Sufficiency by the editors of Cool Spring Press. Cool Springs Press is a leading publisher of step-by-step guides, particularly those relating to DIY, gardening and home improvement.

This book aims to help an average home become more self-sufficient through its series of over 60 projects. But the projects are so diverse that they will take you a long way towards living off the grid completely.

In an effort to be as efficient (and brief) as possible, I’ve only made room in this post for the top five books to have in your library but the truth of the matter is, there are so many more that should be there!

One of these must-read books is How to Stay Alive in the Woods: A Complete Guide to food, shelter, and Self-Preservation that makes starvation in the wilderness next to impossible! by Bradford Angier.

This book is an absolute classic, and the small paperback can be easily tucked into your gear and taken along for the trip.

The content is fairly solid, though the drawings leave you a little short on the details of certain skills like setting traps and fire building.

Although the language is somewhat dated now (it was written in 1956), the book has one great thing going for it: The information is evergreen. That is, the skills presented have anyways worked and always will work. If you’re lucky, this little book might be all you ever need.

            As mentioned in the beginning of this article, there are other books that should be a part of everyone’s survival book library and the ones I’ve mentioned here are just the beginnings for growing that library.

The books discussed here cover outdoor survival, foraging for food, and what to do in case of an accident or medical need.

Thanks for stopping by today and reading through to the end. This is going to wrap today’s post and, as always, I hope you’ve found it informative as well as entertaining. If so, please leave a comment below and until next time, Happy Living!