Being a prepper takes a lot of work. You have to know a lot about everything from growing your own produce to dealing with a natural disaster or power outage in your city. It can get overwhelming trying to figure it all out on your own. These books can help you create a solid prepping plan for your own family.
The Best Self-Sufficient Living Books for Preppers
Barnyard in Your Backyard: A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, and Cattle (Amazon)
Author: Gail Damerow
If you’re into prepping, then you have probably thought about raising your own animals at some point. This book shows you how to raise a variety of animals in a smallish space as well as general care tips for each animal.
Backyard Farming on an Acre (More or Less) (Amazon)
Author: Angela England
Find out how to grow your own food on as little as ¼ of an acre in this handy guide to small farm living. Read about growing vegetables and raising animals at a fraction of the cost of store prices.
You can read more about this book in our review of the book.
The Urban Homestead – Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Amazon)
Author: Kelly Coyne
As a city-dewller myself, I am particularly interested in this book. It covers topics like preserving food, growing food in a small space, raising your own animals, and even foraging for your free-range foods around you.
Books on Emergency Care and Prep
The Untrained Housewife’s Guide to Getting Prepared: Surviving Emergencies Without Stress (Amazon)
Authors: Robin Edgerton and Angela England
I read and reviewed this book for Mom Prepares in the past, and I love it. I think it is one of the best overall guides for living a prepper lifestyle that I have ever seen. I like the simplicity of it and the wealth of information contained in the pages.
Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient when the Unexpected Happens (Amazon)
Author: Kathy Harrison
This book is the answer to the more-probable emergencies that we will face throughout out lifetime. It covers topics like natural disasters, days-long power outages, and area evacuations.
When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency (Amazon)
Author: Matthew Stein
This book covers the basics of day-to-day prepper living, but it also covers the worst-nightmare fears that everyone has when thinking about the future. If the economy collapsed, would you know how to survive? This book can show you how.
Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Family Safe in a Crisis (Amazon)
Author: Peggy Layton
Could you survive for more than a couple of days on the food stored in your house? This guide helps face the practical issue of feeding your family in the face of disaster and offers essential tips for surviving and using emergency food stores.
The Survival Medicine Handbook: A Guide for When Help is Not on the Way (Amazon)
Author: Joseph Alton
During a disaster, it is likely you may have to face medical situations without the help of a doctor or other medical professional. This book can help you figure out what to do when help is not on the way.
Preparing Food for the Future
Cookin’ with Home Storage (Amazon)
Author: Peggy Layton
I like this book because it talks about real ways to use foods from your prepper storage.
In some cases, I think we keep our foods until an elusive “rainy day” that doesn’t come before the food is spoiled.
A great book, prepper or no. Everyone should know how to make good food with what they have on hand!
Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation (Amazon)
Author: The Gardeners and Farmers of Centre Terre Vivante
I’m extremely interested in traditional food preparation before the invention of cans, freezers, and other modern conveniences. This book covers how to use some of those traditional methods in your own kitchen.
The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest: 150 Recipes for Freezing, Canning, Drying and Pickling Fruits and Vegetables (Amazon)
Author: Carol W. Costenbader
This is a basic guide for canning, pickling, drying, and freezing foods just like great-grandma used to do.
Share your favorite prepper books below!
I wouldn’t mind looking in to some of these books as they are specific to certain topics and I hope, from someone with specific expertise. One book that can not and should not EVER be left behind, an not on this list is: “The encyclopedia to Country Living” by Carla Emery. Whatever you might be looking for, is in this book…
It covers every topic mentioned in the books above (mainly because most of it was off-grid or close to it and rural, as well as mostly life experience before/without a lot of high tech) and many other topics a person might not ever think about, like burying your dead loved ones. I know it can happen, have seen it happen, but something I never thought of.
Almost 1,000 pages and ANY and EVERY possible topic you could ever imagine as a homesteader or prepper! I haven’t been able to read it cover to cover. There is just too much information to absorb. I typically just open the book to a page. In the years of owning this book and at least 200 times picking it up, only once did I open it to the same page/information. Only because I put a paper clip in between the pages as a reminder to where I left off on a topic I wanted to continue learning more about.
In my opinion, this book is a Bible and blueprint for every prepper or homesteader. This book offers generations of knowledge and experience, at your finger tips and in print. Not digital media. I have worked in construction, I have worked on farms, I hand sharpen tools, I have hunted, fished and gathered and I learn something new each and every time I open this book.
I have the 10th edition. There are later additions out such as the “40th Anniversary Edition”. Carla Emery passed in 2005 but I believe any edition would cover the needs of any prepper or homesteader, 10 fold.
Mike,
That is a really good suggestion! I actually had the privilege of meeting Carla in 1999 when she came to speak to a group of people at a friend’s house. My family had her book and we referenced it a LOT!
Great list! There are a couple you listed here I don’t have that I will have to check out!
I would add that Joel Skousen’s books, Strategic Relocation and The Secure Home 3rd Edition, are essential for an excellent prepper library. There is nothing on the market like them.
Joel has been consulting preppers on secure locations for their homes, and how to make them secure for over 40 years.
Strategic Relocation is like a prepper map with detailed information about every state and the safer/more dangerous locations in each one. It helps you know which areas to choose to live in to be more secure (away from nuclear threat sites, less populated, etc.) with information on how to travel in case of a catastrophic emergency (NOT on major highways!)
Secure Home has incredibly detailed information and plans about how to make a Secure Home. I particularly love the resource section he includes in the back, with explanations about the differences between products and companies. Cannot recommend them enough!
Oh, we are huge Salatin fans here! Great recommendations for the list. Thank you!
These are some great starting points for my husband and I :) We want to be overall more prepared for any type of need. My family was without power for over 2 weeks during a snowstorm once, and having a well stocked pantry and plenty of firewood for heat and gas for the generator helped us get through it just fine! There are a lot of aspects we want to know more about and thankfully my local library has most of the books mentioned in your blog post and in the comments so looks like I need a read my books day! :)
On the farm where I grew up, my father often referred to FEEDS AND FEEDING. It is full of nutritional analyses of animal feeds, and allows you to combine whatever is available to get complete protein in the most efficient way. DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET offers similar guidance for human beings.