From the comments, written by Sometimes Anonymous Michael: A bit off topic but could we discuss a library from the group's experiences worth owning for an economic collapse scenario?
In the spirit of a Canticle for Leibowitz, what books would you wish your family to have as not to drop into dirt farming serfs.
The Bully Pulpit
As owner of this blog, I am going to get the ball rolling by starting with some 40,000 foot, fly-over type books.
1. A translation of the Bible that you will read. Preferably one of the more literal translations (rather than dynamic) with good footnotes. That is, a study Bible.
Reasons: You may have to bury somebody. You may have to kill people or see people starve to death. You will be The Captain of the Ship as well as Spiritual Leader of your Ship. If you are of some different faith, then purchase whatever Spiritual Book is most foundational to your faith. Suicide and death-by-addictions are likely to be a frequent cause-of-death and you don't want to lose any of your people. Strong spiritual guidance will armor them against those ends.
Also consider the Anglican Book of Common Prayer as a supplement to the Bible.
2. Shit hit the Fan Survival Stories by Selco Bergovic. One of the two "Been there, done that" books.
Reasons: We are going to have to harden-up in nearly every way to survive the first few months. This book will help burn-through the denial of the attrocities fellow humans are capable of. It will pull the wool away of what social breakdown looks like.
3. Chronology of Argentina's Economic Collapse by Fer FAL. The other BTDT book. Sadly, I was not able to find a link to a print version.
Reasons: Same as above.
4. The 900 Days: The Siege Of Leningrad.
Reasons: Another book to help recalibrate people trapped in denial. "How bad could it get?" Another lesson is that the mayor lied to Stalin about the amount of grain he had stored in the city. Stalin told him to ship it to the factories in the east. The inability for the mayor to tell the truth and his supporting "the narrative" cost thousands of people their lives.
5. Crisis Preparedness Handbook by Spigarelli.
Reasons: The book doesn't hyperfocus on any particular area but gives a balanced first-look at the challenges a family will face. There are a multitude of books that are much better if you are deep-diving into specific challenges, but Spigarelli does the best job of skimming the tops of the waves.
At the 20,000 foot level
Collections of old, Boy Scout Merit badge books and/or Military Field Manuals. Recommendation from my readers will be appreciated.
Reasons: Those manuals are simple instruction manuals with minimal filler. We are not going to have much time as we transition from inactive office workers who are forty-pounds overweight to hard-bodied men and women who can work on our feet for 14 hours a day. We will not have the time to absorb Master's Degree level instruction on field medicine (Blisters, anybody? Dysentery? Sunburn?) or nutrition or any one of a dozen other topics.
Making the Best of Basics by James Talmage Stevens.
Reasons: Food that will be available will likely be in the form of grain/flour, beans, vegetable oils and cheese. That may sound like a lethal diet to some, but get over it. That is where +80% of your calories will be coming from for an undetermined amount of time.
Jane Brody's Nutrition Book (or her cookbook The Good Food Book)
Reasons: Very readable. Very broad in the range of foods covered (including things like "greens" and fermented products). Lists calorie contents of huge numbers of foods which will be useful when we NEED more calories.
Living more with Less by Doris Janzen Longacre.
Reasons: It was first published in 1980 and it is just as "fresh" and appropriate today as the day it was published.
Ball Canning Book Spiral bound edition
Putting Food By (Mrs ERJ suggestion)
Root Cellaring by Bubel
Rich on Any Income by James Chistensen and Clint Combs (Mrs ERJ suggestion)
Reasons: Money isn't going to disappear. It is too handy and functional.
Fanny Farmer Cookbook or Joy of Cooking. (Mrs ERJ suggestion)
Reasons: Comprehensive. Basic.
Mend & Patch: a handbook to repair clothes and textiles
Reasons: Short at 128 pages. Focuses on functional repairs rather than ornamentation. Unread by me.
Gardening when it Counts by Solomon
Reasons: These concepts were trialed for five years as Solomon started his seed-catalog business. He ruthlessly jettisoned methods that did not work or required the purchase of outside inputs. If it did not work, Steven Solomon did not get to eat.
Introduction to Permaculture by Mollison
Reasons: Short and presents concepts with an economy of words without diving down any rabbit holes. Putting the chicken/duck coop in the middle of your gardens and orchard saves YOU a lot of steps. So does putting a food-prep table in the same general area, leave the dirt in the garden. Many observations similar to that in the book.
The Prince by Machiavelli
Reasons: Scammers, schemers, grifters, tax-men, politicians and warlords.
*****
I need to tie this blog post off. I am losing the ability to type.
What books do you recommend? I didn't list any animal husbandry books. One glaring omission is the lack of a dog-training book. There is no reason the family pooch can't pull his own weight...and then some.
maybe the Foxfire books?
ReplyDeleteNuclear war survival skills. Free PDF available. Much of the data is good for disaster situations nuclear or not.
ReplyDeleteMy personal advice is to try or do to some degree some of the things you might need to do in the real situation. Try cooked whole wheat berries. Pound some corn or make hominy from scratch. Process acorns to remove the tannins then eat some.
I will second the trial-runs. I had white rice and split peas in one of my disaster-buckets. I tried to survive for a weekend on that diet. It bound up my bowels as if it were concrete. I literally was not worth a shit.
DeleteBetter to have those experiences when fixes are cheap-and-easy. Adding more oil and fiber and physical movement is not optional.
I love split peas! Lentils are good, too. I plan on having a reserve of white rice & dried lentils as I begin building my own disaster-buckets. I've been on a simple boiled lentils & white rice kick lately. My fiancee has yet to partake... More for me!
DeleteBoiled lentils and white rice is a great base for fried rice. Does your fiancee like bacon or chicken or pork? Does she eat any green vegetables or even frozen, mixed vegetables?
DeleteOr, you can use it as a base to ladle curry over. Maybe she likes Thai foods.
At least she will be used to the idea of lentils-and-rice even if the amount of curry or other veges gets a lot skinnier during hard times.
The military has some good field manuals. Divemedic has a bunch at his website, sectorocho.com; they're listed under training manuals in the menu. Download and print. I wouldn't count on digital being up after shtf. If you don't have it printed and in a three ring binder you can't count on having it.
ReplyDeleteSeed to seed by Suzanne Ashworth an excellent book on how to save seed and store it properly for use next year and beyond.
ReplyDeleteKind of important when your supply of seed packets gets used up or old-damaged.
Might also be a source of a small business to provide folks with viable seeds after their supply of hybrid seeds is gone.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carlia Emery
I need to buy a second copy as this one is so battered from use in the gardens and barn.
"Old-and-battered" is that patina that informs the user that the book is a valuable tool.
DeleteMore books should be spiral bound.
By the way, thank-you for the suggestion. It is a peach of an topic.
DeleteYou're welcome. I really enjoy your posts and often interesting replies I read daily here.
DeleteOne Second After by William Forstchen is the book I recommend. It may not have a lot of specific survival info but it really gets you thinking. ---ken
ReplyDelete2nded - a lot of sobering behind the scenes information (% of people dependent on daily medications).
DeleteI'd also recommend all of us research what grows in each of our immediate locations and how - when to process them. Instead of depending on planting only backyard gardens, know what that 'weed' actually is and find out what useful properties it has. Food and medicinal that sort of thing.
A set of books I would recommend are the Foxfire series of 14 books begun in 1972 containing interviews with old Appalachian people about how they lived in the old days. How they grew their food, made medicine, built houses, raised their animals and all parts of life. Very informative.---ken
ReplyDeleteThe Storey Country Wisdom and Know How guide is a compilation of many of the smaller Storey Pamphlets. It covers almost every possible aspect of country living. Their books on animal husbandry are also pretty approachable.
ReplyDeleteMy "If I Could Only Have Five Books" list is The Bible, A Book of Five Rings (Miyamoto Musashi), The Peloponnesian War (Thucydides), The Pilgrim's Progress (John Bunyan), and Dark Piper (Andre Norton - Sci-Fi Survival story that I have re-read for years). If I were to throw two or three more on there, I would add Meditations (Marcus Aurelius), The Enchiridion (Epictetus), and the Penguin compilation of a number of Plato's writings under the title "The Last Days of Socrates".
Survival with style by Bradford Angier, or any of his other writings based on col. Whelen Townsend.
ReplyDeleteAh, so many possibilities. What about some technical references? That may be a little above the hardscrabble survival level, but something like Machinery's Handbook or the Chemical Engineering Handbook. Maybe some basic electronics texts?
ReplyDeleteThe National Electric Code is updated an published every three years with the latest update being done in 2023.
DeleteThere is nothing technically wrong with the 2017 edition, it just doesn't have all of the updates. The 2017 books are plentiful, durable and inexpensive.
Not a book, but a suggestion. Check your local library to see if they have any of these books (or any other book you’re interested in buying) available. My library system, which covers around 70 libraries, has many of these books in either hard copies or digital so I can check them out (pun intended!) and see of they’re for me before I buy. I rarely buy books anymore except for reference type or things I’m really interested in, so I always try before I buy if I can.
ReplyDeleteThe latest book I bought after using this method was The Power of Silence by Cardinal Robert Sarah.
Very true! Our library system has a large e-book collection too.
DeleteI think however, this discussion is for times when the public library system is not available to someone. Your personal at-home library.
"Where there is no Doctor" by David Werner
ReplyDelete"Where there is no Dentist " by M Dickson.
Truly they might save your or another's life.
Agreed. Especially dentistry - lots of people know basic or even higher levels of first aid, but very few know ANY dentistry.
DeleteJonathan
I agree about Foxfire books. I’m 75 and I have some old cook book a household type books that we inherited from mine and my wife’s grand parents. Whey are so well used you can’t read the covers and you won’t find them in a book store. So look in your elder relatives attics and maybe second hand shops or talk to those who have been there and done that! I worried about the younger generation that probably wouldn’t know how to cook the rice and beans if they found some. Wild foraging books might help with the bound up guts. Also do t rely too much on electronic versions because may be down and the cloud inacessable!
ReplyDeleteSorry, lots of typos
DeleteCastalia Library (by Vox Day) has taken to publishing great works in the public domain in leather bound archival quality editions.
ReplyDeleteThey're a bit pricey, but sometimes go on sale. I have given 3 as gifts, they are very finely made and all were well received. If you are able, it would be money well spent.
When Money Dies by Adam Ferguson. A history of the hyperinflation and how individuals were impacted in the Weimar Republic.
ReplyDeleteGardening books may be a help for some info. People would have to pick out what’s do-able, appropriate for their climate, and food storage. Start growing heirlooms and saving seeds. Some of the old Backwoods Home magazines covered a lot of subjects for self sufficiency.
ReplyDeleteI have one book on building and managing a root cellar. Some things work, some don’t.
Also the Self Sufficient Life by John Seymour. Has a ton of info on crop rotation,, composting, keeping chickens, rabbits, all on a small acreage. Not all is applicable now, or may not work in your climate.
The Ball canning book is a must-have.
Southern NH
Although he's not well known in such circles, Robert Wayne Atkins has been writing about this for a long time. He's written numerous books and web articles, which can be found at https://www.grandpappy.org/.
ReplyDeleteI have a copy of his Grandpappy's Recipes For Hard Times and recommend it highly. On my wish list are his:
Grandpappy's Survival Manual for Hard Times
Practical Strategies for Long-term Survival
The Most Important Survival Skills of the 1800s
Lots of interesting topics at his website, but it's especially worth taking a browse through his hard times survival and wilderness survival web articles.
The Forager's Harvest by Sam Thayer
ReplyDeleteI have The Amish Ways by Eddie Swartzentruber. He was brought up Amish and shares what lessons he learned from the farm.
ReplyDeleteVery early copies (1970-1975) of Mother Earth News
ReplyDeleteIt’s a great exercise but Jim Rawles compiled a solid-gold list long ago at Survivalblog.com:
ReplyDeletehttps://survivalblog.com/bookshelf/
It is an extremely good resource.
Emergency War Surgery by the Department of the Army, available on Amazon. Excellent overview of life-saving surgical procedures, and basics of anesthesia. I’ve had a copy of this for the past 30 years, and even though it’s updated now still valuable.
ReplyDeleteThe Merck Manual, older editions are fine.
ReplyDeleteAnatomy and Physiology college book, used are great and cheap.
How Things Work series MacAulay
An encyclopedia set, Grolier's, Britannica, World Book old is okay
Some on line book retailers sell 'used books' at a great price. You have to look closely to find the used selection. I've bought a number that way, now some are bent or marked in but they tell you how they are damaged and I've only been disappointed once. TeX.
ReplyDelete