Book List One
Here is the first of what will be several lists of recommended books over the coming months. Much fear is based in ignorance - lack of knowledge, lack of skills. Books are a great way of correcting that imbalance. Admittedly, not everyone likes books nor finds them an efficient way of learning new information or a new skill. And training - whether formal professional courses or informal mentoring from friends - will always be immensely valuable. But building a solid library of quality manuals, how to guides and reference books is important and will serve as a strong foundation for self and group improvement.
These days, we know many prefer e-books for readability, travel and storage factors. We too hoover up as many useful PDFs from across the web for reading on Kindle. But we take great pains to back up multiple hard drives with copies of this digital library to ensure disaster recovery. And we even go to the length of printing many out and putting them in binders as part of our physical library. Loss of the internet through a massive virus attack has already been gamed out by the same people who brought us the Event 201 which handed the playbook for Covid 19 to world leaders on a Gates and Schwab silver platter. Physical books cannot be deleted remotely at the flick of authoritarian switch.
We cannot help you if you get most of your knowledge from Tik Tok, Instagram or Facebook - we can only encourage you to seek out better sources. But it is worth saying something about internet videos - YouTube being the obvious repository. We have lost count of the number of times someone more knowledgeable and competent has saved our bacon on a generator/solar/vehicle/gun/ construction problem with one of their videos. We would hate for such a resource to go away. But with out of control politically biased censorship becoming the norm, we do not need to look too far into the future to see that whole classes of videos are at risk. Milling out 80 percent AR lowers or Polymer 80 Glocks? Rolling your own Tannerite? Getting a Form 1 on a solvent trap and building your own suppressor? Tuning a Rare Breed Forced Reset Trigger? We all may want to consider, where possible, downloading and preserving such videos (with multiple back ups) against the day that they are no longer available - let alone the entire internet is gone. How to do this will be the subject of a future article.
In the meantime, here are 10 books we think should be in everyone's library:
1. Extreme Privacy "What it Takes to Disappear" (Second Edition Michael Bazzell). Learn a range of options for removing your information from the Web, hiding your physical address and stopping Big Tech from tracking your every move. The time to make these moves is now, well before anything happens to make it essential.
2. You and the Police by Boston T Party and Arrest Proof Yourself by Dale Carson. Having a handle on interactions with law enforcement and how to minimize your chances of arrest are already valuable survival skills in modern society but will become essential in what is increasingly an authoritarian police state.
3. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. While we have strong reservations about Ramsey's methodology on investing (the Boggleheads are more our style) and sympathize with the criticisms of his debt philosophy IF you are successful entrepreneur like Elon Musk, the fact is that most people would benefit following his debt reduction/elimination and wealth building strategy. Far too many people live paycheck to paycheck, cannot cover a $1000 emergency bill and concern themselves only with affording the payment rather than the true cost of something. Freedom includes financial freedom and being on a solid foundation is powerful for preparing for hard times and pushing back on Washington.
4. The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. Learn to harness the value of intuition and that gut feeling that something is not right before violence happens. Pick up on the subtle clues and buy yourself vital time to take evasive action. Something for everyone you care about to read.
5. The Little Black Book of Violence by Lawrence Kane and Kris Wilder. Twinned with The Gift of Fear as a must read for anyone you care about. Thankfully, many are unfamiliar with visceral, street level violence and have a distorted view from Hollywood and the nightly news. But the breakdown of law and order is creeping across America whether it be through riots, muggings, police shootings or shoplifting swarms. The dynamics, rituals and defenses are increasingly important to understand.
6. Combatives for Street Survival "Hard Core Countermeasures for High Risk Situations" by Kelly McCann. Continuing in the same vein, if you only ever get one book on practical self defense moves, get this one. There are many other good books out there but this one ties together an excellent philosophy with simple, easy to learn techniques. It has a companion DVD which is worth having too.
7. Defensive Living by Ed Lovette and Dave Spaulding. A quick read on taking a 360 degree, 24/7 approach to security - at home, at the office, in a vehicle.
8. Total Resistance by Major H. Von Dach. The Swiss Army Guide to Guerrilla Warfare and Underground Operations. A Cold War era treatise on what to do if you country is occupied by an invading force. For academic and historic purposes only but good for coffee table discussions.
9. Resistance to Tyranny by Joseph Martino. A more modern and broader take on Total Resistance, though it too is a little dated given the advances in technology over the last decade. Plenty of food for academic thought about how resistance movements are structured and work.
10. Bonus book 11: Storey's Basic Country Skills "A Practical Guide to Self Reliance" by John and Martha Storey. We could easily devote several subsequent book lists to the subject of Prepping, food storage, gardening and raising animals. Indeed, we probably will. But for now, here is an all time classic to provide a gentle introduction to the topic in an easy to absorb style. Enjoy!
