Best wilderness survival book?

The number of survival books on the market are many and sundry; however, one that may be considered the "bible" is "How to Stay Alive in the Woods" (originally titled "Living Off the Country", 1956) by Bradford Angier, Black Dog & Leventhal, 2001, 315 p. It's clearly written and illustrated, and the hardbound edition is rubber-clad to survive the elements. I found mine at Half Price Books for about $10.

This quote is a requisite caveat to any survival book, however: "Knowing wilderness and survival skills is important, but knowing how to recognize and avoid problems in the first place is much more important. Caution and smarts make far more difference than shelter building and fire-starting skills. Once the dominoes start toppling, your control of the situation is largely gone, and luck often matters more then preparedness or 'survivor mentality.' This is not a popular view in adventure media (witness all the survivor shows and books) but it's the truth."

Happy Trails!

I confess that I'm less keen to recommend Mr Angier's book as a really practical survival book. Parts of it are somewhat dated (and I say this as someone with a collection of outdoors literature dating back over a hundred years) and other writers give more detail and clearer practical techniques.

In particular, Mors Kochanski is widely regarded as the authority in northern American forested environments; and his "Bushcraft" is essential reading. He is also not a man to pretend that a $500 knife makes you a better woodsman than a $10 one, well chosen. Ray Mears is another name to look for, a superb teacher and with an astonishing breadth and depth of knowledge. He too has an excellent book titled "Bushcraft" although you might be better off with the condensed paperback version called "Essential Bushcraft". As a general purpose survival book covering a variety of environments it's arguably the best introduction on the market. Mr Mears' first book, the hardback and very much out-of-print "The Survival Handbook" under the name Raymond Mears, is regarded by many bushcrafters as a better work, but "Essential Bushcraft" is both much easier to buy (and consequently far cheaper!) and perhaps more accessible.

There are plenty of other good choices, Richard Graves' "The 10 Bushcraft Books" for example, but there are also lots of rather superficial works cashing in on the recent blossoming of interest in this area. Many of them, as was the case with numerous older books, have a habit of repeating information from previous books without really testing it and giving undue weight to somewhat marginal techniques. You can see this clearly with the classic illustrations of building a campfire: the old cone "teepee" of twigs is actually a surprisingly poor and unstable way of making a fire, but it looks lovely and neat on the page. Plenty of books show those same old illustrations, though; and the same is true for other information.

EDIT: Worth mentioning is "Lofty" Wiseman's "SAS Survival Guide" which has been produced in a dizzying variety of formats and editions over the years. As an out-and-out survival book to use when things go entirely pear-shaped it's a very good choice, but many of the techniques it includes are definitely for emergencies only, not least because they are far from kind to the environment. The Collins "Gem" pocket edition is certainly a good one to have in your pack or carry-on luggage, but it's not necessarily the ideal choice for someone who mainly camps. For the hiker and camper I would suggest that the books by Mears and Korchanski offer a better grounding in woodcraft.

"98.6 – The Art of Keeping Your A$$ Alive" by Cody Lundin

Tom Brown's books are excellent classics, albeit they can seem overly spiritual. The library should have some.