Are you busy prepping lately or are you striving to be more self sufficient If you've ever looked any resources up you know there are so many books out there on prepping it can be overwhelming! Here are my recommendations for the best emergency preparedness books that you can have in your library. Each of these has it's own special qualities and are useful for different areas of being self sufficient. Do you own any of these yet?
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
This book doesn't have much on kitchen info or recipes but if you have animals you will want to get this one! It has large and detailed chapters on raising and taking care of all different kinds of animals.
Another great resource. This book goes in depth about "old fashioned" living. Everything from building various cold storage in your backyard to planting a good garden. This book is less "prepping" and more self sufficiency.
This is a good and simple resource. It covers in detail what to do for all different kinds of natural disasters and how to prepare for them. If you are new to prepping or really want to work on being ready for natural disasters this is a good, basic, easy read.
This book is another HUGE one with all kinds of info. This book covers food storage in detail, medical prepping, making prepping part of your normal routine, and much more. This is a very comprehensive book.
Mennonite Country Style Recipes
Now this might seem like an odd book on this list but the idea is to have a GOOD basic cookbook. Every kitchen that wants to be self sufficient must have one! The Mennonite Cookbook I mentioned above was actually my first cookbook as a young girl and I still have it and use it regularly, it's excellent! (And huge!)
What do you think of this list of my best emergency preparedness books? Is there any that you would add? What do you think about having paper books like these on your bookshelf versus ebooks?
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I received an autographed copy of Mennonite Country Style Recipes as a wedding gift 20 years ago and went to college very near where Esther Shank lives. This is by far my favorite cookbook. My copy is full of bookmarks, scraps of paper, and notations.
Wow, so lucky! My book is totally falling apart now, it’s so well loved!
Putting Food By is my go-to book for canning, drying, freezing and otherwise preserving. It’s the best. The Foxfire series, as a whole, also is high up the list, as well as being entertaining (people often forget to put “fun” stuff in their prepper bags!). I also have Hoyle’s Complete Book of Games, the 1986 or so version, which has every card game known to man up until that date.
I would also recommend “How To Live Without Electricity And Like It” by Anita Evangelista. And “Five Acres and Independence” by M.G. Kains. Both have good advice on how to live without what we would call “neccesities”.
I agree too with the Foxfire Series- It’s fun just to read also.
I love the Country Living Encyclopedia! Such useful information, and it’s kind of obscure stuff, too, so it’s a little bit of everything.