Books on survival

golok

golok

Joined
Oct 20, 2000
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I have browsed through a number of survival books. Some of them are quite educational and informative.

There is one in particular (I have forgotten the title) which has some very useful information on survival in various types of environments.

I know there's nothing like participating in actual survival courses but for those city slickers who neither have the time nor the opportunity to attend these courses, these books are the second best thing.

Any good recommendations?
 
I am also interested in survival books... And more interested in survival video's or DVD's if they make them. (So I could see techniques in action)

At the end of July I go to Vermont for a week and will be taking a day class on survival. Can't wait! :cool:
-Kevin
 
I have numerous survival books and tapes ranging from Tom Brown (read: utter crap don't waste your money) to Mors Kochanski / Woodsmaster series (top rate).

Ron & Karen Hood explain survival techniques so that even dummies like me can repeat them. I would rate my Swedish survival books as the best because they deal with my terrain and cover my fauna and flora. IMO if you're interested in Survival then pick up a local publication first, since techniques taught for Northen American survival might not be suitable for countries closer to the equator etc.
 
Good advice, Nordic Viking. Thanks.

Next question: From where you are, which place sells the best traditional Swedish knife?
 
golok said:
Good advice, Nordic Viking. Thanks.

Next question: From where you are, which place sells the best traditional Swedish knife?
Click to expand...
I like to check around at the local knife markets for custom blades but otherwise Frosts of Mora sells their knives directly to the public between 15 June and 15 August. I might pick up a Lapplander blade there since I want to try my hand at custom handles. If that turns out ok then I might try to customise a Fällkniven ;)
 
The United States Air Force Search & Rescue book is decent. It goes into fairly decent detail on all kinds of stuff, from the obviously important sheltering, food and water to things that aren't thought of in many cases, like weather and travel. It's about 600 pages, and some of the stuff probably won't even apply to you; all terrain is covered fairly extensively as the writers never know where the Air Force will be flying, plus there's a decent amount of military-oriented stuff about surviving amongst the enemy, something that I don't really plan on doing in my day-to-day camping.

There's a lot of info. If everybody read and practiced this book, I'd probably cut SAR missions down 95%. Of course, I'd be able to cut them out at least 75% if people came programmed with common sense. At least there's people out there trying to learn about what to do, as it sure makes my job a heck of a lot easier. .
 
98.6 The art of keeping your ass alive by Cody Lundin is a good one. Some will say they don't like it for one or another trivial reason, but the book gets right down to the root cause of death while in the great outdoors and teaches you how to prevent it.
 
The tom brown survival series is excellent, do the exercises mentioned in them and you will be skilled, they are met as teaching guides to learn the skills. I recommend buying swedish knives from Abe Alias, at Diving Sparrow, he's a nice guy and has good stuff. He gave me a free knife :D
 
Don't take everything you read as correct. There is a lot of great information out there, but there is plenty of miss-information out there too. Just because someone writes a book or makes a video dosen't make them any smarter/better than you.

Your past experience counts a lot in deceiding how to pick and choose through the information as to what will work and what won't work for you in your situatiion with your abilities.

Practice techniques to see what works for you. Never take information at face value. Example: go out into your backyard or city park during rain and check out you firemaking skills. Then you know what you can depend on for making fire.
 
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