Best Survival Book Hardly Anyone's Ever Heard Of?

I know there have been threads on the popular survival books, and of course, the excellent list on Doug's website, but does anyone have any recommendations for unusual, old, rare, esoteric, and/or cool survival books that hardly anyone has ever heard of?

I've always been a fan of Bradford Angier but I don't know how rare he is. He was a book editor in the 1950's who moved to Canada and became a fulltime outdoorsman. Some of the info in his books is outdated but there is a lot of common sense included as well.<br><br>Chris

The one failing of survival manuals is readability. Remember how Lewis Carrol's Alice dried off? John Muir wrote of a night caught out in a storm. He had to call out to his companion just to confirm each was alive throughout the night. Yet he remarked on the incredible beauty of the storm itself. I promptly refitted my cold weather gear upon reading that chilling passage- during a California summer! CAMPING AND WOODCRAFT by Horace Kephart is a classic of common sense and readability. His Preface quotation of Richard Harding Davis on personal gear willl bring tears of laughter to Altoid tin debaters ;O) The works of his contemporary Nessmuk are a fun read also. The gear is dated, but paraphrasing Gandalf " I see by looking ahead, and looking behind me."

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.

"The Ten Bushcraft Books" by Graves. Originally published in the 50's as ten separate volumes, the single volume edition currently available for some reason excludes the book of traps.<br><br>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0446327476/103-6993279-9243838?vi=glance<br><br>He was an Aussie commando trainer WW11 Pacific theatre.<br><br>Lots of neat info, not very dated as the only equipment relied on is axe and knife.

I have an older version of that book with the trap section included. There are some nasty bow and spike traps included.<br><br>Chris

Again, this is not a "survival book" (despite the title) and I don't know how rare it is - I just did a search on "Peter Goodchild" on Amazon and the book was reprinted in 1999, but "Survival Skills of the North American Indians" is a good read. <br><br>It does contain information that would be useful in a survival situation, but it's not a "how-to" manual; rather, it's a (IMO) well-researched look at how the native population lived in North America before we white fellers came along. (For example, Goodchild describes how the Indians of California would hunt deer - they would station as many hunters as they could get at intervals 0f 50 to 100 feet along a deer run. When a deer came by, one hunter would jump out and chase it toward the next hunter, then that hunter would chase it toward the next, and so on, until the deer dropped from exhaustion and the hunters finished it off. Not much use in the survival situations we discuss, but a fascinating piece of information anyway (to me, at least).<br><br>I bought this book in the gift shop in Waterton National Park in southern Alberta; I've never seen a copy of it before or since (and I'm a bookshopaholic ;-) However, as I said, it is available from Amazon. I see also that Goodchild has another book which I think I will order - "The Spark in the Stone: Skills and Projects from the Native American Tradition".

Is "Tunnel" the Heinlein book in which the "kids" are going off on their survival test, & get marooned? One of kids takes his older sister's advice (and her knife, as a spare) to carry a good blade, rather than some battery powered gizmo.

IIRC, you're right--excellent lessons in many of Heinlein's works, including "Farnam's Freehold" and "Friday", too.

I keep Fletcher's "Complete Walker III" near to bedside; it's about worn out...time to get another copy.

David

Fletcher's Complete Walker IV is, along with all previous versions, also by my bed side. This one has the points of view of both Colin and Chip Rawlins.

I find it fun to read each versions various areas and see how much has NOT changed over the last nearly 30 years of backpacking.

As Colin says the basics of survival comes down to pretty much just being prepared, good equipment and good skills.

One of my favorite undiscovered books is:

The Winter Wilderness Companion: Traditional and Native American Skills for the Undiscovered Season
by Garrett Conover, Alexandra Conover, Elliott Merrick

This one covers winter operations via snowshoe and tobaggan. More traditional skills rather than modern highly specialized skills. (Wool, cotton, rawhide, canvas, wood stoves rather than fleece, goretex, plastic, nylon and multifueled stoves). Much along an updated Paradise Below Zero by Calvin Rutstrum.

I have that one too. I heartily recommend it. It has a really good explanation of how much food (or extra padding <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ) you need in cold weather.

I also liked it that they pointed out that "low impact" camping is really "displaced impact". Not that I think we should be allowed to go chop down trees in National Parks, but it's good to be reminded that a compact white gas stove isn't necessarily any friendlier to the environment than a wood bonfire.

aardwolfe.

I also appreciated the Conovers distinction between locally low impact and global impact. It is amazing how easy it is to disregard human impact on the environment when we are not actively doing all the impact. If you think of an oiled cotton verses a goretex coat. What are the impacts from picking the cotton or drilling for the oil through final disposal. It is nearly impossible to list each manufacturing step and its impact....I'm betting the list is shorter for the oiled cotton though.

Really just a good read also....I really like the FatBack 'Lassy Touton Cookies. (Bacon Molassas Spice cookies....excellent), I can almost feel my arteries clogging but at least they warm the body and soul.

What is your favorite all around survival book? <img src="images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

That's the one.
-Biscuits

Hands down: Collins Gem "SAS survival guide"

Small, light, portable and comprehensive
Unless of course you have a photographic memory then you don't need any book with you haha.

Mike

SAS GEM edition by Lofty Wiseman. $10 and you have a book that fits in your pocket and coveres just about everything reasonably well.

Foxfire, foxfire 2 throught 11 i think. Combination of how to do things like butcher a hog, build a log cabin, traditional hillbillie medicine that probably did more harm than good, and an anthropology of a dead culture

oh. the Foxfire books are editied by Eliot Wigginton. And the dialect is quoted with greater effectiveness than any highly esteemed novel (Faulkner's _As I Lay Dying_, etc.) That I have ever read.

I think it's important to note, though, that this book is really only useful for North Woods (and more northerly) winter environments, where it is consistently cold enough to keep the snow from melting all over the place.

Even the authors admit that when the going gets wet up there, there isn't much you can do about it except suffer, sealskin boots or not.

Great book, though. I'm ditching my Lowe Alpine Contour IV pack and North Face synthetic sleeping bag for a Duluth Pack, and some nice Filson wool.

It seems to me that Angier's books are becoming very rare indeed. I was introduced to Angier via the green-nubby covered reprint that I found on the sale racks at BN, but the other books of his that I have been able to acquire have been gleaned from dusty old used book stores.

Here's a title you may not have heard of, but it comes with a war story, so throw another log on the fire...

In the late 70s. when I was a volunteer SAR in S. Arizona, the regiion was hit by a late, very strong "sneaker" storm on the Easter weekend. This generated a lot of business for us, rescuing church groups and such stranded in the mountains by heavy snows, campers in flooded creeks, etc. When it all cleared up, we felt very happy that we had gotten everyone out with no fatalities.

But later that year, about October, someone stumbled into a campsite in a very infrequently visted area of the Baboquivari Mountains (SW of Tucson) and everything in place, including the partially mummified body of said camper. Included in his gear was a volume with the title of "Survival Made Simple." I haven't seen this tome in the bookstore lately, and I don't know the author. I am not sure I can recommend it....

_Pulling Through_, by Dean Ing. Very readable tale of post-nuke survival with great details (such as making a ventilation pump out of cardboard and duct tape...how ya gonna breathe??). Also, _Wolf and Iron_, different author, not close to the bookshelf right now, just do a search...it's more of a "societal collapse" book, but does include valuable info, 'specially for all you wanna-be blacksmiths <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Pretty much all the Australian ones that don't get a mention on this site:
Australian Bushcraft: a serious guide to survival and camping. By richard Graves published by Dymocks books
Stay Alive' a handbook on survival by Maurice Dunlevy and published by Australian Government publishing service. Used by the Aussie defence force well written, lots of pics and diagrams.
Anything written by Les Hiddins ( Bush tucker man) and if you can find them anything by Malcom Douglas.
Both the above have contributed greatly to the Australian Bushcraft scene in their own way. They have out out some pretty good videos too though Malcoms is myu preference. Les Hiddenspanders to the Europen market in his.
From the poms anything by Lofty Wiseman and Barry Davies.
As well as a very rare fellow Eddie MacGee who wrote a survival book for kids. Good for adults as it is pretty basic and idiot proof.