Recommended Bushcraft and Survival Books
Ultimately if you want to be proficient in bushcraft and survival skills, you have to go outside, train in the techniques and use them in practice. Even knowledge must be tempered by experience. There are no two-ways about this.
You will be able to gain a great deal of guidance with respect to the techniques to focus on and how to execute them by using books as a guide. Consider the books below as a syllabus: If you assimilate the knowledge these books contain and become proficient in the techniques outlined, you will be a very capable outdoors person.
All the books below come highly recommended. I won’t recommend a book that I haven’t read myself and all of them are on my bookshelf.
The links to Amazon are affiliate links, that will redirect to the relevant Amazon website for your territory. When you buy one of these books after following a link below, a small percentage of the purchase price goes towards supporting this site. It doesn’t cost you any more to buy the book and it helps me to pay for the sit. Everyone is a winner!
I won’t put a book on here that I don’t think is good because next time you won’t believe me. My credibility with you is more important to me than a small fraction of the cost of a book.
Bushcraft Books – Essential Reading
Richard Graves – The 10 Bushcraft BooksMors Kochanski – Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness SurvivalRay Mears – Essential BushcraftLarry Dean Olsen – Outdoor Survival Skills
Survival Books – Essential Reading
Gregory J. Davenport – Wilderness SurvivalLaurence Gonzales – Deep SurvivalJohn Hudson – How To SurviveDr John Leach – Survival PsychologyCody Lundin – 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass AliveCody Lundin – When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster StrikesJohn ‘Lofty’ Wiseman – The SAS Survival Handbook
Bushcraft, Survival, Woodcraft Books – Further Reading
Dan Beard – Camp-Lore and WoodcraftDudley Cook – The Ax Book: The Lore and Science of the WoodcutterThomas J. Elpel – Primitive Living, Self-Sufficiency, and Survival Skills
Lars Fält – Outdoors the Scandinavian Way – Equipment, Safety and Survival Skills for Summer ActivitiesLars Fält – Outdoors the Scandinavian Way – Equipment, Safety and Survival Skills for Winter ActivitiesDaniel Hume – The Art of FireEllsworth Jaeger – Wildwood WisdomHorace Kephart – Camping and WoodcraftPaul Kirtley – Wilderness Axe Skills and CampcraftMors Kochanski – Basic Safe Travel and Boreal Survival HandbookAndrew Lane – Survival AdvantageBernard S. Mason – Woodcraft and CampingRay Mears – The Survival Handbook Ray Mears – Outdoor Survival HandbookLars Mytting – Norwegian Wood: The guide to chopping, stacking and drying wood the Scandinavian wayJohn Rhyder – Woodcraft: A Guide to Using Trees for Woodcraft and BushcraftGeorge W. Sears (Nessmuk) – Woodcraft and CampingErnest Thompson Seton – The Book Of WoodcraftWille Sundqvist – Swedish Carving TechniquesDavid Wescott – Camping In The Old StyleDavid Wescott (editor) – Primitive Technology: A Book of Earth SkillsDavid Wescott (editor) – Primitive Technology II: Ancestral SkillsBruce Zawalsky – Canadian Wilderness Survival
Natural Navigation Books – Recommended Reading
Harold Gatty – Finding Your Way Without Map or CompassTristan Gooley – The Natural Navigator
Tracks, Sign and Tracking Books – Recommended Reading
Preben Bang and Preben Dahlstrom – Animal Tracks and SignsMark Elbroch & Casey McFarland – Mammal Tracks and Sign: A Guide to North American SpeciesMark Elbroch & Eleanor Marks – Bird Tracks and Sign: A Guide to North American SpeciesJack Kearney – Tracking: A Blueprint for Learning HowDavid Lees et al – Tracks and Signs of the Birds of Britain and Europe (Helm Identification Guides)Louis Liebenberg, Adriaan Louw & Mark Elbroch – Practical Tracking: A Guide to Following Footprints and Finding AnimalsJohn Rhyder – Track and Sign: A Guide to the Field Signs of Mammals and Birds of the UKDavid Scott-Donelan – Tactical Tracking Operations