The 8 Best Survival Books for UK Preppers in 2024
With both the physical and political environment seemingly getting worse every day, its no wonder more and more people are looking to start prepping and be concerned over their families survival. While you can easily buy the best multi-tool or cheap first-aid kit, the one thing that you cant buy is knowledge! What you can do is absorb some amazingly curated and condensed survival information from these best survival books.
The UK at the moment is seeing a bit of a surge in prepper popularity, and there is no surprise that a corresponding increase in searches for what the best survival books those new people can pick up. Here in the UK we’re more likely to suffer disasters relating to extreme weather, supply chain collapse or society and political unrest. For broader reading, we’ve written The Top 8 Disasters to Prepare For Now! .
Table of Contents
- Criteria for the Best Survival Books in our List
- Best Survival Book Recommendations
- Where There is No Doctor
- Off Grid Kid: Survival Skills For Life
- The Homestead Prepper's Guide to Food Storage
- Ordnance Survey Maps
- Back to Backs – A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills
- Prepped and Ready – The Ultimate Guide to Prepping
- Rosemary Gladstar's Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide
- The Urban Prepper's Guide
- Best Survival Books – Additional Resources
- Recommended Survival Book Authors
Criteria for the Best Survival Books in our List
What makes the books in this article stand out? Well we’re looking for books that are:
- Relevant to UK audiences, or general Western Europe topology and environments
- Packed with practical prepper and survivor advice
- Up to date or still largely applicable to modern prepper plans
- Available for purchase at a good reasonable price
- Niche but comprehensive coverage on a specific prepper subject
Step-by-step guides, as well as real world scenarios and clear diagrams/pictures are massively beneficial.
Best Survival Book Recommendations
Where There is No Doctor
By David Werner – ISBN 978-0942364156 – 496 Pages
An excellent resource that is used by preppers and hundreds of communities around the world that don’t have the luxury of widespread accessible healthcare. (There’s also a corresponding Where There is No Dentist book – that is equally worth its weight in gold)
Werner’s book is super down to Earth, easily readable and full of practical guidance on health and healthcare. It covers topics such as treatment of diseases, illness and injuries via improvised and medical means. There is also useful practical advise on setting up things like working toilets (latrines) and medical rooms, immensely relevant for any UK prepper.
It was the first book that made it into our best survival books recommendation category, and is on just about every preppers book list too.
Off Grid Kid: Survival Skills For Life
By Dale Jinks – ISBN 978-1739405694 – 180 pages
Jinks’ book is an interactive survival guide aimed at older children and teenagers. It covers essential skills such as making fires, building shelters, finding safe drinking water, foraging for wild food, and how to signal for help. Crucially it also focuses on developing more of a survival mindset. The author, Dale Jinks, is a serving member of the armed forces [RAF] here in the UK – so his experience is tried and true.
This book is particularly valuable for UK preppers with younger family members, promoting hands-on self-reliance and preparedness from an early age. It’s a really unique approach, not seen in many books, and combines real-world survival techniques with fun activities and quizzes. Jinks’ work ensures that the learning process is both effective and enjoyable for prepper kids. Time to get the whole family on board with one of the best survival books out there for teenagers.
The book’s interactive content and detailed illustrations make it engaging and educational for younger audiences, however preppers of all ages would benefit from its content in one form or another.
The Homestead Prepper’s Guide to Food Storage
By Juliet Clark – ISBN 979-8876273796 – 89 Pages
While definitely not the thickest tome we’re recommending in this article, this condensed book is immensely useful for those looking to become self-sufficient.
Obviously more suited towards those with their own dedicated homestead or spare land – this read focuses on long-term generation and strategy of hearty and nutritional supplies.
If you’re wanting to become truelyself sufficient in the lead up to an emergency – or just to cut down wasted and your shopping basket cost – pick up this great little read from Ms Clark.
Ordnance Survey Maps
By The Ordnance Survey Company
Okay so this recommendation isn’t technically a book, but these OS maps make an excellence resource for when the Internet and your Google Maps go offline. Not only do they inform you of the lay of the land, but also are important tools when finding high ground, water sources or remote points.
Perfect for anyone who is happy to investigate and use the land.
It may also be a good idea to grab yourself a good road atlas – as there’s potentially going to be no GPS or Internet when certain disasters strike. If you’re wondering if you’re prepared for a sustained black, check out our article: A Survival Guide on What to Do in a Blackout
Back to Backs – A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills
By Abigail R Gehring – ISBN 978-1629143699 – 458 Pages
This is a fairly hefty book, covering so many ‘traditional’ skills that are 100% perfect for preppers. While this book tackles this subject as these quaint important skills you may need – during an emergency or wide-spread disaster these very skills will save your life.
The majority of these traditional skills, as the author calls them, are long-term series endeavors; like raising chickens, building a wood cabin or even making your own cheese! That’s not to say there isn’t short, quickly applicable skills in here too, like making your own nutritional soups etc
If you’re looking to prep for long term, putting roots-down, survival – this book is for you. A gold mine for a super-wide variety of survival topics; from metalworking, sanitation infrastructure, wood preserving, to fishing techniques or hardness water and solar energy.
Prepped and Ready – The Ultimate Guide to Prepping
By David Pugh – ISBN 979-8694492416 – 167 Pages
What is really good with Pugh’s book, Prepped and Ready, is that he realises every prepper is different and literally grades his advise accordingly. He gives countless pieces of practically advice and grades them using a traffic light system – green for ‘starters’, amber for those proficient and red for more advanced preppers.
This simple addition from an author helps guide readers from becoming bogged down in complex processes and from being disheartened with advanced planning steps.
Ideal, but not just for, beginners and mid-level preppers.
David’s writing is also very open and welcoming, drawing you in to read one more page. He covers a variety of practical skills from knot tying, to home protection and long-term food storage.
Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide
By Rosemary Gladstar – ISBN 978-1612120058 – 224 Pages
This book, by the renowned author Rosemary Gladstar, is a great little beginners guide to growing, collating and preparing herbs and flowers for both medical and culinary usage.
Gladstar includes instructions and recipes for over 30 herbs that you turn into oils, oitments and medicinal creams.
Ideal for beginners and those just starting out with medicinal herb.
The Urban Prepper’s Guide
By Jim Cobb
The full title for our last entry in the best survival books, is the somewhat lengthy ‘The Urban Prepper’s Guide: How To Become Self-Sufficient And Prepared For The Next Crisis’.
Jim’s 200+ page book includes a great chapter on action during the golden hours – the first 24 hours of a disaster. This is a great inclusion that is looked over in most books.
Other well written and researched chapters include everything from communication plans, shelter building and medical advise, to even financial planning. Jim avoids prepping for global catastrophes such as nuclear fallout and instead focuses on more-likely, practical tips for everyone – rural and city dweller alike.
Best Survival Books – Additional Resources
To produce the best survival books list, alongside our own personal collection, we collated suggestions from the following great sources. Well worth reading and expanding your knowledge even further.
- ThePrepared – Best Prepper Survival Books
- The UK Prepping Shop
- FoodBunker – Ten Books Every Prepper Should Own
- Reddit – What Survival Books Would you Recommend
- BePrepared – Ultimate Survival Reading list of 7 Books
Recommended Survival Book Authors
You may also want to check out the other works by these amazing authors – most of which appear on comparable lists of best survival books: James Wesley, John Wiseman, Steven Rinella, Clair Huffhaker, Pearl S. Buck, John Seymour, Robert W. Service, Dr. James Hubbard, David Thoreau, Jack London, David Werner, Murray Dickson, James Michener, Dave Canterbury, Alexander Thom
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