10 Books for Post-Apocalyptic Survival

These are the ultimate doomsday survival titles everyone should have before a disaster strikes

We take so many things for granted that the moment we lose them, we feel despair, alone, and incomplete. Just thinking about this scenario makes us suffer an irrational fear of being without a mobile phone, computer, internet, or technology.

Whether caused by natural causes, the result of a terrorist attack, or an armed conflict. Have you ever considered what would happen if you were cut from all the technology we are so used to having? What would you do if help didn’t come, and you had to be auto-sufficient for a week, a month, or a year?

Realizing that you won’t be able to use the internet on your cellphone or computer to check your options or search for advice. These books will help you survive the worst-case scenarios with advice on survival, health, food storage, harvesting food and water, fixing anything at home, and defending yourself and your family.

1.- SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere Paperback By John ‘Lofty’ Wiseman

This book is the ultimate guide for all campers, hikers, and outdoor travelers. It has been updated to reflect the most recent advancements in survival knowledge and technology and covers new themes, including urban survival and terrorism. This comprehensive training includes everything from fundamental camp craft and navigation to anxiety management and coping mechanisms for any form of disaster like:

• Being ready includes knowing how to interpret the weather and having the necessary supplies, such as a pocket survival kit.
• Finding the ideal place, building the proper shelter, setting up camp, keeping warm, and making tools.
• Food: What to eat, what to stay away from, where to get it, and how to cook it.what to avoid, where to find it, and how to prepare it.
• First aid is a thorough introduction to emergency/wilderness medicine that teaches students how to best survive in any environment or when injured.
• Disaster preparedness: Knowing how to respond to adversity and survive if all services and supplies are cut off.
• Self-defense involves arming oneself with fundamental hand-to-hand fighting skills.
• Security is defending your home and family from theft, trespassing, and intrusion.
• Climate and terrain: Surviving in every environment, including the tropics, the poles, the desert, mountains, and the sea.

2.- When All Hell Breaks Loose SStuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes By Cody Lundin and Russell L. Miller

This book has everything a family needs to be ready, learn about survival psychology, and develop the skills required to go through a crisis, whether at home, at work, or in the wild.

Describing how to make the most of the survival mindset required for independence. The book claims that surviving an emergency requires 90% psychology and 10% approach and equipment. With significant quotes and advice, readers are assisted in remembering crucial survival techniques when faced with stress and worry. Including items to include in home, workplace, and automobile survival kits, as well as basic first aid and hygiene knowledge, such as:

• Potable drinking water
• Storing super-nutritious foods
• Heating or cooling without conventional power
• How to create alternative lighting options
• Building a makeshift toilet & composting the results
• Catching rodents for food
• Safely disposing of a corpse

3.-The Survival Medicine Handbook: The Essential Guide for When Help is NOT on the Way By Joseph Alton MD, and Amy Alton APRN

Would you be ready to keep your family healthy if a tragedy rendered the advanced technology we take for granted useless? When hospitals are overflowing and the ambulance moves the opposite way, could you still provide medical care effectively?

If you were the last remaining medical asset, could you take over? This book covers trauma treatment, first aid, chronic care, medical procedures, and more. Anyone concerned about the uncertain future must frequently use it as a reference.

In simple words, anyone can understand, but it’s not just another medical first aid book. It’s unique in that it assumes that a disaster, natural or man-made, has removed all access to hospitals or doctors for the foreseeable future; you, the average person, are now the highest medical resource left to your family.

With over 300 topics and 300 illustrations, it covers just about every situation the family medic will encounter in times of trouble. For example, the principles of becoming prepared for the medical supplies and natural medicine to how to treat fractures, dislocations, respiratory issues, births, mental health, and the correct use of antibiotics.

4.- Where There Is No Dentist By Murray Dickson

It contains updated training materials, resources, and information on Atraumatic Restorative Treatment (ART), a technique for filling cavities without a dental drill.

Where There Is No Dentist is used by community health professionals, educators, and others worldwide to assist people in taking care of their teeth and gums. The broad scope of this book makes it a priceless tool.

The author explains how to assess patients, identify common dental issues, make and utilize dental equipment, apply fillings, and extract teeth using clear language and detailed instructions.

5.- Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving By Judi Kingry

Updated with new recipes and expanded sections on low sugar and fermentation, home canning items, preserving supplies, and the iconic jars on display in shops every summer from coast to coast to reflect developments over the past 15 years.

This bible of home preserving from the masters of the craft features over 400 creative recipes for salsas, savory sauces, pickles, chutneys, relishes, jams, jellies, and fruit spreads. It serves as a companion to their goods.

Include step-by-step instructions on safe canning and preserving techniques, listings of the tools and equipment needed, and helpful hints for seasoned canners.

6.- Carrots Love Tomatoes Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening By Louise Riotte

You’ll have the greatest harvest of each if you know how to plant parsley and asparagus together, but if you want broccoli and tomato plants to grow well, keep them far apart. Use plants’ inherent qualities to improve soil, ward off pests, and ensure a larger crop with lots of wise counsel and recommendations for planting strategies to transform your garden into a genuinely supportive ecology.

If you want to know what plants to put next to each other so that they can produce defensive mechanisms that will preserve and protect other plants, you should read this book on companion planning. If you plan to plant your garden this spring, it will show you what plants to put close together so that you know what fertilizer to use for the soil.

7.- The Forager’s Harvest A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants By Samuel Thayer

Planting your garden can be therapeutic and a great source of food. Unfortunately, it takes time, and in an emergency, you won’t have the time to wait for your tomatoes to grow. So what could you eat meanwhile? Do you know what plants are edible and which are poisonous?

This book comprises a guide to 32 of the best and most popular edible wild plants in North America, including information on how to identify them, where to find them, and how to harvest them. Furthermore, what parts to use, how to prepare them, as well as information on their culinary applications, ecology, conservation efforts, and historical uses.

8.- Harvesting Rainwater for Your Homestead in 9 Days or Less 7 Steps to Unlocking Your Family’s Clean, Independent, and Off-Grid Water Source By Renee Dang

In addition to food, you’ll need water after a tragedy. Your well could be unsafe, or you won’t be able to support yourself and your family for a few years.

Here is a step-by-step guide on quickly, inexpensively, and conveniently bringing rain to your property. This comprehensive, stress-free plan for installing an above-ground rainwater collection system shows you how to collect pure, clean rainwater with minimal time, money, and worry. It was created to demystify and simplify the procedure, especially for beginners. No prior knowledge is required.

Thanks to step-by-step illustrated instructions and the remarkable 7-step Quick Rain Blueprint, you can bring rain to your house and yard. You’ll discover precisely where to buy the proper components, how to install the fittings correctly, connect everything, and where to get the fittings.

9.- Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual Completely Revised and Updated By the Editors of The Family Handyman

Complete DIY Guide designed in a textual format that speaks to readers in a highly approachable, conversational tone for simple, user-friendly guidance for any DIY endeavor.

The most recent materials, tools, and technology are mentioned in all instructions and documents, which have also been updated to suit current codes (electrical, plumbing, and construction). The new original concepts and features are appropriate for both beginners and specialists, and they include:

• Over 3,000 photographs and illustrations, including over 1,500 new full-color photos and 100 new technical drawings.
• Additional chapters on landscaping and storage projects with materials and cutting lists.
• Cross-references at the top of each page. Metrics are supplied with most measurements throughout the text, including a comprehensive metric conversion.
• Yellow-highlighted comments of warning or essential things to remember.

10.- 100 Deadly Skills The SEAL Operative’s Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation By Clint Emerson

Though nobody likes to think about this last topic, it is crucial to consider your personal and your family’s safety. Hence, I selected this title.

It includes tried-and-true self-defense techniques, evasion strategies, and immobilizing techniques that have been adapted from the realm of black operations. They will help you respond to a variety of “worst case” circumstances, such as breaking out of a locked trunk, creating an improvised Taser, or fooling face recognition software. Emerson shows you how to think and behave like a special forces member by detailing several life-saving techniques and providing clear instructions and pictures.

This comprehensive survival course shows you how to use low-tech to “no-tech” techniques to avoid being tracked, flee kidnapped, escape from an active shooter, rappel down a building, incapacitate an aggressor, defend oneself against cyber-criminals, and much more. Clear, comprehensive, and presented in an easy-to-follow fashion.

Take Away

As the adage says, always hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. These ten books will help you overcome and survive the worst-case scenarios.

I recommend you buy paper copies and put them in a secured place at your home, on your trailer or boat. Remember, you might find yourself disconnected from the internet and any help from the authorities.

Be sure to take some time to read them and get used to the information they provide on survival, health, food storage, harvesting food and water, fixing anything at home, and defending yourself and your family.

“Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

© Copyright Jose Luis Ontanon, 2023