I'd nominate two very different books that aren't "survival" books, but each has had a huge influence. "Tunnel in the Sky" by Robert Heinlein (science fiction), and "The Complete Walker" by Colin Fletcher (non-fiction, backpacking).<br><br>What I've learned from "survival manuals" tends to blend together. There's so much overlap, very few of them are really distinctive, and many are so dry as to be almost unreadable, no matter how interested you are in the subject. <br><br>What I've learned from each of these books stands out clearly in memory, and there's never any question of the source.... and life keeps reinforcing the lessons (if you're lucky enough to survive forgetting them the first time).<br><br>I've got family in North Carolina in the middle of the blackout area. It was days before we could get a phone call through. They moved there from Connecticut to get away from things like that, having lived through the week-long blackout and ice storm there in the 70s. Suddenly they're asking questions about all that funny stuff I have in the basement again.<br><br>Not a year goes by that I'm not glad that I became familiar with Heinlein and "Tunnel in the Sky" at an impressionable age.