What reference books to you find yourself going to back to time and time again? What reference books are on your list? What did you get that wasn't very helpful?

For myself, I keep going back to:
"The Encyclopedia of Country Living" by Emery
"Storey's Basic Country Skills" by... Storey

For learning wilderness skills:
"Bushcraft" by Mors Kochanski
I have Les Stroud's book but haven't read it yet. I imagine there will be a lot of overlap.

For basic information and kit construction:
"98.6 Degrees" by Cody Lundin.
This is the book I give friends who ask about basic preparedness.
I've just started Lundin's other book "When All Hell Breaks Loose" and like it so far.
I keep a copy of "SAS Survival Guide Handbook" by John Wiseman (the little one) in my main kit.

Books I'd like to acquire:
"Where There Is No Doctor" and "Where There Is No Dentist" by Werner
"Gardening When It Counts" by Steve Solomon
I'm also looking for a good book on canning, butchering and baking.

"Extreme Simplicity" by Christopher Nyerges and Dolores Nyerges was a bit of a disappointment.
I didn't like "The Survivor Personality" by Siebert & Siegel.

There are a lot of really good stories about survival out there, but I'm only talking about reference books here.

Thanks

"Where there is no Doctor" and all related books are available for free download at: http://www.hesperian.org/publications_download.php .

The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army Survival Manuals are good references and are available for free download at: http://www.scribd.com/ . I have checked out the ones I downloaded and they are genuine.

The "Merck Manual, Second Home Edition" is a good thing to have on your shelf if you are not a medical professional.

I would also recommend a good botany guide for whatever area you plan to survive in.

Here a collection of related books / articles
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message742541/pg1

Bushcraft by Richard Graves
This is now out of print. There are copies on Amazon and at least one PDF download available on the web.
It was written for Australia but it still has a lot of good material in it. Especially on navigation.
(It is not the same as Kochanski's book, which I also like a lot.)

Camping and Woodcraft by Horace Kephart.
Almost a hundred years old, but it is a true gem. It is also available used and there might be a download or torrent for it.
There was a recent reprint but I think that is out of print now too.

For wilderness medicine Wilderness First Aid by The Red Cross is a good read.
Wilderness Medicine (Beyond First Aid) by Dr William Forgey is another good text.

Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game by Mettler is pretty much a classic text on the subject.

The Complete Guide to Canning and Preserves by the US Department of Agriculture is also the best plain language text on canning and has been for many years.
It can be purchased new and there are free downloads for it too.

About a week ago, I mentioned these books in another ETS Forums post about gardening... but it probably bears repeating here:
"The Joy of Gardening", by Dick Raymond ... and "Burpee : The Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener".

Those are both large books with tons of information for (vegetable) gardeners. You'll find quite a bit of overlap between those books; but, I find that I refer to both books constantly.
The Dick Raymond book is a bit older; and he liked to fire up the Rototiller a bit more than most gardeners will probably want to these days. But, he seems to really love the craft of gardening, and that comes through in his writing... that makes his book a very enjoyable read for me.

Six ways in and twelve ways out. Generally geared towards military personnel (SERE), they have some info that I haven't seen anywhere else. It is a self-published piece that needs some editing, but it is pretty good and not the standard info you see in every survival book.

http://www.usrsog.org/manu.htm

The SAS Survival Handbook by John Wiseman

Pete

Survival literature should be approached with a few caveats.

First, any medical information over even a few years old may have some serious problems with procedures now rejected as of little use or actually harmfull.How many people have Cutter snakebite kits? raise your hands.

Two, there is A LOT of fossilized information or incorrect diagrams that have been passed on without confirmation. When I hear somebody boast their students dug solar wells and produced enough water to compete with SPARKLETS I read everything else they write with a dose of salt ( from that obsolete medical list.)

The INVERSE of this caveat is a book of utter worthlessness may have one gem buried in the matrix of backfill that makes it worthwhile.

Three, a lot of kit recommendations are a result of personal prejudice, regional needs and often simply what was 'at hand.' For many years the KABAR was a popular knife in the OZ bush. They did reshape the leather handle, drill a lanyard hole and amputate the upper tang.KABARS seem to have been what was available, they made the best of it.

The many interconnected groups of outdoors have different world views. keep this in mind when reading, wiegh it's impact on the material and be respectfull ( unless it's the guys building 55 gallon drum silencers for .50 BMG rifles)
An old acquaintance could never master teh bowdrill. He went to REEVIS MOUNTAIN SCHOOL and came back grumbling about the ( largely) vegetarian fare and campfire talks about reincarnation.
Oh, THEN he demonstrated his now superior to mine skilll at bowdrill fires, mumbling Peter was the best instructor he'd ever had.I'd eat cold hamburger helper on french toast for a week if I got such a skill! Don't gigle at buckskins,BDUs,loinclothes or my tweeds. You can laugh at Goretex.

As to a few books not mentioned so far. THE 2 OZ.BACKPACKER by Robert S. Wood- Ten Speed Press has some neat information- even if I hate vapor barrier liners.

The Winter Wilderness Companion by the Conovers is another good read, especially for clothing.

RODALE PRESS published dozens of titles during the 70s 'back to the land' movement. If it was beekeeping or building log homes they published something- and in frustratingly limited runs.
You get started in any longterm aspect of sufficiency, and I garantee you will see a RODAL title in the bibliography. You find a Rodale title, buy it. You have something highly tradeable in the community- better than .22LR survial barter or gold coins. And, you get to read it first before trading it to the lady who talks to bees.

Lastly, the most VALUABLE group of books ever written, now VERY rare. ANYTHING on Y2K. A good reminder that not all of our social fears actually come to pass- just the ones not expected, like magnetic reversal of the poles right after our new Silva came via post.....

Just a big thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread! I already have a sizeable library but looks like I'll have lots more reading to do. Perfect for a rainy evening.

Thanks again, you guys all deserve a beer or two!

My cookbooks, especially the rough draft of my own!

Camping and Woodcraft: Handbook Vacation Campers Travelers Wilderness By: Horace Kephart

Good basic wilderness answers. How to tan hides, make sourdough, fish etc.

Cameron

Tom Brown's Survival Guides, ISBN 0-425-21502-4
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Approximately 6.5" Wide X 9.5" Tall X 1 5/8" Thick. 533 Pages. Hardbound.

This is a compilation of Tom's two prior books (Tom Brown's Field Guide-Wilderness Survival, 1983 & Tom Brown's Field Guide-City and Surburban Survival 1984).

Black & white with quite a few decent illustrations. Good coffee table book, nice to give as a present to folks just starting out in preparedness planning.

The material is presented in a straight forward conversational manner and is easy to read without any hidden agendas. The goal is to help folks learn about basic preparedness and this book is an excellent kickoff.

This book was acquired for $9.99 USD at Costco several years ago.

* * * * * * *

Camping & Wilderness Survival by Paul Tawrell, 2nd. Edition dated 2006,
ISBN 0-9740820-2-3 & ISBN 978-0-9740820-2-8
Printed in Canada.
Approximately 5 3/8" Wide X 8 1/4" Tall X 1 1/2" Thick. 1,077+ pages. Soft Cover.

Good quality paper, very few pages do not have at least 2 or 3 color illustrations for the 49 Chapters that truly seem to cover everything from soup to nuts for enjoying (and surviving)outdoors. This is a great book to chain to your coffee table because everyone wants to borrow it.

By and large it is very well written and is obviously a long term work by the author. While there are several outdated ideas in the book according to current thoughts in the subject, I have no hesitation in recommending this book to anyone.

You will observe that some of the illustrations seem to appear from other places, I suspect that the author has an agreement with a major Canadian purveyor of outdoor goods as there are several references to the company in some of the illustrations used.

A very enjoyable read, one that you can simply open up to any page and start reading with no problem. Due to the colors and many illustrations, it has great visual appeal and everyone that has seen my copy has wanted one. It is a great resource when working with kids since many of the pictures and illustrations are very easy to figure out.

This book was acquired for about $20 USD at Costco several years ago.

* * * * * * *

Pocket Ref by Thomas J. Glover, 3rd. Edition 2002 by Sequoia Publishing USA.
ISBN 1-885071-33-7
Approximately 3 1/4" Wide X 5 3/8" Tall X 7/8" Thick, 768 Pages, Soft Cover.

Good quality paper, all black and white with some illustrations and diagrams, but otherwise chock full of tables and charts of very useful data arranged in 30 chapters plus an index.

This book is not one that a person would normally read from cover to cover like to two books listed above, but it is a book that is a really great reference to fall back on when researching a project you are considering building.

If you ever find a need to know how much various types of concrete weigh, how wide a span your wooden joists can go and still carry their rated load, information on electrical components, devices, ratings, air, water and steam calculations, hardware standard sizes and ratings, wood, steel, pipe size data, basic first aid, basic primer on some math and engineering calculations, pepertual calandar, fire extinguishers, longevity statistics and too much more to list.

My only issue with this book is actually it's good point. It is sized to be put in a pocket and be handy when needed, unfortunately this means small print and I'm now finding out that my arms are not long enough to hold the book and read it. Yes, I've found that I am needing reading glasses more and more.

This book was approximately $20 and was purchased from a construction trade bookstore several years ago.

* * * * * * *

Engineering Forumlas, 6th. Edition by Kurt & Reiner Gieck. Published in 1990 by Gieck Publishing in Germany, but also has publishing information by McGraw Hill Inc. ISBN 0-07-023455-8 Approximately 4 1/2" Wide X 6" Tall X 1" Thick, approximately 375 pages, Hard Cover.

Contains 22 chapters that cover engineering formulas and calculations on Units, Areas, Solid Bodies, Arithmetic, Functions of a Circle, Analytical Geometry, Integral Calculus, Differential Calculus, Statics, Kinematics, Dynamics, Hydraulics, Machine Parts, Production Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Radiation Physics, Chemistry and a Tables section.

This book is more about providing the calculations to do things, than it is a database of knowledge and explainations like the other books above. Each book has it's own place.

This one is where you can go to find a hard copy of the actual calculations but it is somewhat limited in scope when it comes to actually applying those calculations, you need to have a decent handle on math to fully appreciate this one.

Acquired this for about $10 USD several years ago.

* * * * * * *

If you are considering the purchase of any of these books, look for the latest editions which will likely be newer that what I've reported on here.

Happy Reading,
Regards, Comanche7

Same here! Along with my collection of canning and food preservation books.

Another set are my reloading manuals. I would not reload without them.

Hay benjammin and SBRaider, share the love. Perhaps you could photocopy or scan your homemade references and add them to the sea of knowledge. I know I'd read them.
With the www.scribd.com source Montanero mentioned you could upload the scans and link to them from here.
Thoughts?

Careful posting copywrited material on the net. Scribd may not always check, but the copywrite owners might.

Good list you have going here guys. I would also like to throw out:

No such thing as doomsday- Philip Hoag. GREAT book about shelter construction (bomb shelters). Unfortantly it is hard to find and expensive when you find it, the new version his wife just kicked out everyday prepardness or something like that, is everything that use to be in his book, MINUS anything shelter related, IE not really worth your time or money.

root cellaring: natural cold storage...- Mike Bubel

seed to seed- Suzanne Ashworth

US Army survival Skills guide. NOT THE TO (which is also great), but the new book released by the Army and Jay McCullough. Its a brick however, about as big as The encyclopdeia of country living.

Shelter, Shacks, and Shanties- DC beard. There are many versions of this book out, I own about 12. They are all differnt and some are edited for content. But any will show you the way.

If you have or are planning a renewable energy system to you house... the renewable energy handbook- William Kemp

Then there is my list of stuff that I have built and collected on solor cooking/ dehydrating, water purification, food preserving, small animal raising, a bunch of material on surviving the depression, medical, dental, composting, humanure, ect.

Also so be it some of his articals are WAY out there, there is still a lot to be learned from the some of the writtings of Kurt Saxton.

Last in this post, but not last at all, and I am surprized no one brought it up yet. The Bible.

Hey Matt and others,

Is "Six ways in, Twelve ways out" a worthwhile enough book for me to import it into Canada? It looks interesting to me?

Thanks, Mike

In my opinion, that book is well worth the nominal cost. The money also goes to a good cause.

Agreed.

I addition, the book offers information not found in 95% of the other survival guides/manuals. Definitely some of those "pearls of wisdom" mentioned in an earlier post can be found in the book.

Thanks for the advice Matt and Yelp.

Mike

I can vouch for "Where There is No Doctor" as it saved me and several others from various maladies while serving in the U.S. Peace Corps.

When we first received this crudely illustrated book as part of our kit, we laughed at how "primitive" the instructions seemed (it was originally aimed at unschooled villagers) yet after a couple of years, most volunteers knew the information in those pages was worth its weight in gold...

Thank you for that Meadowlark...I'm going to take a good, serious look at that volume now.

Yelp -- If you already have a background in medicine, much of the info in this book may seem "dumbed down" but it personally got me through severe dysentery, heat stroke, sinusitis, and helped me to administer minor first aid to several villagers (burns and cuts) and discuss good nutritional/hygienic practices with them.

I left my copy behind when my service ended, but found and printed out the first aid chapters online a number of years ago. I believe I got it from the Hesperian Foundation, which graciously distributes it for free.

The hydration theropy section is also good to know.

Also good job on volunteering for relief/ aid work.

HIGHLY recommended...
Storm Gourmet: A guide to creating extraordinary meals without electricity by Daphne Nikolopoulos. ISBN 9871561643349...$9.95 Got this after the spate of hurricanes in Florida recently. Very good, and the best part is the shopping list of staples to have on hand. Recipes are good, and if you have children having them help can ease the tension and make them feel better, cuz no matter what, kids are the most vulnerable. They need to know they are safe. Recipes can be modified for regional tastes and food availability.

Hurricane guide: Be ready, be safe...ISBN 9780978592615 $9.95.
Again worth it's weight just for the lists of items to have in any bugout kit....like DVD/thumbdrive/external HD backups of critical documents and photos. Because of this book, I have four storage bins packed ready to go in case I have to leave suddenly. Like last year, the fires in Florida got within 3 miles of my house, and I had them packed in my car just in case I couldn't make it back home. Not reaaly for hurricanes exclusively, but this is the book that got me started on the survival/self reliance kick.

"Dare to prepare"

www.standeyo.com/Our_Books/DTP.html

A manual of preparing for a wide variety of situations. New edition just published. I've not found anything out quite like it.

Check out the LDS church websites for food storage ideas as well

Making and Using Dried Foods by Phyllis Hobson.

How to Grow More Vegetables -- than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine by John Jeavons.

Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape by Robert Kourick.

Sue

I like these USFS Lookout Cookbooks for their use of simple, and limited staples.

Both the 1938 and 39 supplement are work downloading.

http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Publications/Cookbook/Lookout_Cookbook.aspx