Books and Resources

This page is under construction and was last altered July 23, 2000.

I haven't read all these books, but tried to pick ones that looked helpful. The categories of books are General Survival Skills, Useful Plants, Hunting, Tracking, and Animals, and Miscellaneous Skills. The Peterson Field Guides, the Tom Brown books, and other good books I've read are often at the top of the list.

General Survival Skills

Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills, by John McPherson and Geri McPherson

Bushcraft : Outdoor Skills & Wilderness Survival, by Mors L. Kochanski

Outdoor Survival Skills, by Larry Dean Olsen and Robert Redford

How to Stay Alive in the Woods, by Bradford Angier, illustrated by Vena Angier is an interesting book.

Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival, by Tom Brown, Jr. and Brandt Morgan (contributor), illustrated by Heather Bolyn

Complete Wilderness Training Book, by Hugh McManners is an entertaining and informative book, suitable for beginners, but with a lot of flaws.

Useful Plants

A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants : Eastern and Central North America (paperback), by Lee Allen Peterson and Roger Tory Peterson (Peterson Field Guides), is a fine, well-designed field guide with only a few mistakes and weak points. (For instance, the pictures don't always show the whole plant or the edible parts.)

A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs of Eastern and Central North American, by Stephen Foster and James A. Duke (Peterson Field Guides) is another good guide, but its photographs aren't as clear or helpful as detailed line drawings.

Tom Brown's Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants, by Tom Brown, Jr., the famous wilderness survival expert, is to the Peterson Field Guides as a fun travel guide is to a road map. His approach is spiritual and anecdotal, rather than descriptive.

Free for all : weeds and wild plants as a source of food, by Ceres

From Agar to Zenry : A Book of Plant Uses, Names, and Folklore, by Ron Freethy

21 Native Wild Edible Plants, by Mors Kochanski (paperback)

Acorn Pancakes, Dandelion Salad and Other Wild Dishes, by Jean Craighead George, illustrated by Paul Mirocha

Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants, by Christopher Nyerges (foreword by Ed Begley, Jr.)

Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places, by "Wildman" Steve Brill with Evelyn Dean; illustrated by Evelyn Dean

Stalking the Healthful Herbs, by Euell Gibbons; illustrated by Raymond W. Rose

Common Edible and Medicinal Plants of Colorado, With Recipes and Prescriptions, by Kathryn G. March and Andrew L. March

Best-Tasting Wild Plants of Colorado and the Rockies, by Cattail Bob Seebeck

Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Great Lakes Region, by Thomas A. Naegele, D.O., and Janice P. Glime

Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West, by Gregory L. Tilford and Michael Moore

A Survival Acre: 50 Northeastern Wild Foods & Medicines, by Linda Runyon

Common Flowering Plants of the Northeast : Their Natural History and Uses, by Donald D. Cox

Wild Edible & Medicinal Plants: Alaska, Canada & Pacific Northwest Rainforest by Carol R. Biggs

The Wild Plant Companion : A Fresh Understanding of Herbal Food and Medicine, by Kathryn G. March

Wild Roots, by Doug Elliott, is apparently all about roots, tubers, corms, etc., in the eastern United States.

Edible and Useful Wildplants of the Urban West : Medicinal, Edible, Dry, and Landscape Uses for the Wildplants of Denver and Other Western Cities, by Alan McPherson

Alaska Wild Berry Guide and Cookbook, by the Alaska Geographic Editors

Alaska's Wild Berries and Berry Like Fruit, by Verna E. Pratt and Frank G. Pratt (Editor)

Alaska's Wild Plants: A Guide to Alaska's Edible Harvest, by Janice J. Schofield

Alpine Wild Flowers, by Dee Strickler

Appalachian Wildflowers, by Thomas E. Hemmerly
hardback
paperback

Arizona Wildflowers : A Children's Field Guide to the State's Most Common Flowers, by Beverly Magley, illustrated by D. D. Dowden (Great Outdoors)(paperback)

Basic Essentials: Edible Wild Plants & Useful Herbs (2nd Edition), by Jim Meuninck (Basic Essentials) (paperback)

Hunting, Tracking, and Animals

Tracking and the Art of Seeing, by Paul Rezendes, is a really nice book with personal anecdotes and reflections along with good, precise information and clear color pictures.

Familiar Animal Tracks (in the Audubon Society Pocket Guides series), by the National Audubon Society

Field Guide to Mammal Tracking in North America, by James Halfpenny, illustrated by Elizabeth Biesiot

A Field Guide to Animal Tracks, by Roger Tory Peterson and Olaus Johan Murie (Peterson Field Guides)

The Tracker, by Tom Brown, Jr.

The Tracker, by Tom Brown, Jr. and William Owen

The Science and Art of Tracking, by Tom Brown, Jr.

Tom Brown's Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking, by Tom Brown, Jr. and Brandt Morgan