Spring is in the air and along with it brings an all-new Backdoor Survival Prepper Book Festival. It appears that word has gotten out about these BDS book festivals because not a week goes by that an author or their publisher asks me to add their book to the next round. It is a tough call sometimes, but in each case, I do my best to bring to you an eclectic combination of fiction and non-fiction to fill your book reading and knowledge appetite.
BDS Book Festival 8 is no exception and if anything, is the most varied yet. There are a bunch of new authors as well as some favorites, and I am anxious to tell you about them.
But first, for the benefit of the newbies, let me address the question, “what the heck is a Backdoor Survival Book Festival?”
What the Heck is a Backdoor Survival Prepper Book Festival?
BDS Prepper Book Festivals are a showcase of some of the best books and authors in the survival, preparedness, and self-reliance niche. The way they work is that once a week, and sometimes twice, I feature book giveaways coupled with exclusive, one on one author interviews.
To enter each book giveaway, I ask what I hope to be a thought-provoking question and request that you provide an answer in the comments section of the article. I have been told that many readers are more interested in the answers to the questions themselves than the book. I very much applaud that because to be honest, learning from each other is how we will move forward and prevail during these uncertain times.
Just so you know, I typically will provide a way to make multiple giveaway entries so you will want to watch for those bonus opportunities. Many of these bonus opportunities involve social media so if you already like Backdoor Survival on Facebook, or follow on Pinterest or Twitter, you basically have some free entries coming.
Winners of the book giveaways are selected at random and the winning book is sent out directly by the author or the publisher. The winners have 48 hours to claim their prize or an alternate is selected. You snooze, you lose.
That is basically how it works. I have personally screened each book and with just a few exceptions, provide print copies for the giveaway. Sound good? Okay then; let’s get started.
Here is the list of BDS Book Festival 8 books and their descriptions.
Book Festival 8 – Non-Fiction
Tools for Survival: What You Need to Survive When You’re on Your Own
In his earlier bestselling nonfiction book, How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, James Wesley, Rawles, outlined the foundations for survivalist living.
Now, he details the tools needed to survive anything from a short-term disruption to a long-term, grid-down scenario. Rawles covers tools for every aspect of self sufficient living, including:
• Food Preservation and Cooking
• Welding and Blacksmithing
• Timber, Firewood, and Lumber
• Firefighting
Field-tested and comprehensive, Tools for Survival is certain to become a must-have reference for the burgeoning survivalist/prepper movement.
Author: James Wesley Rawles
The Organic Canner
From time immemorial, preserving the harvest was a vital preparation to face the barren winter months ahead. Different methods have been used throughout the ages and many of them, although modernized somewhat, are still used today.
Canning is the perfect solution for those seeking natural food sources, for gardeners, for those seeking a more self-reliant life, and for those interested in preparedness. Declare your independence and free yourself from the toxic grocery store items that are masquerading as food. Learn to preserve the bounty from your garden and local farms, savory hormone-free meats, and nourishing meals created from your own carefully selected ingredients.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced home canner, you’ll love the easy-to-follow instructions, delicious recipes, and directions for safely preserving your own creations.
Author: Daisy Luther
The NEW 2000-Hour Flashlight
The first edition of this book (“The AMAZING 2000-Hour Flashlight”) contained 54 illustrations. This edition (“The NEW 2000-Hour Flashlight”) contains 128 illustrations.
The first edition showed how to modify one flashlight, a specific Eveready model, such that it ran 2000 hours on one battery. Unfortunately, Eveready has replaced that particular light with newer models. This edition shows how to obtain extended run times using other brands – one of which runs 2200 hours, better than the original. (Incidentally, 2200 hours equates to three months of continuous running, night and day.) In general, the modifications or “hacks” are accomplished by adding a resistor (30 cents) to a $5 flashlight.
Simplicity is the watchword. Wire glue (a glue containing carbon that conducts electricity) can be used in place of solder. Wire glue eliminates soldering and reduces the task from a techie project to Junior High School level.
What with floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, typhoons, earthquakes, blizzards, and downed power lines, there’s always a blackout somewhere. If people in general knew the information in this book, life would be a lot easier for a lot of folks.
Author: Ron Brown with foreword by Gaye Levy
The Garden Pool – Feed Your Family From Your Backyard Ecosystem
Garden Pool started as one family’s blog to document converting an old backyard swimming pool in to a closed-loop food-producing urban greenhouse and has evolved in to a non-profit organization.
The GP (short for Garden Pool) was a one of a kind creation invented by Dennis his creation to himself, he decided to share it with others. GPs are being built all over the world offering an easy and sustainable solution to current food production challenges.
This book is a must have owners guide for anyone interested in aquaponics, raising chickens, raising goats and more in a self-sustainable manner.
Authors: Dennis & Danielle McClung
Survival Savvy Family: How to Be Your Best During the Absolute Worst
Author Julie Sczerbinski is just like you. She loves her family. And she worries about their well-being. Disasters, from natural to financial, concern her. But unlike most of us, she has a plan. And now, so can you.
Smart, upbeat and direct, Survival Savvy Family helps you to be your best during the absolute worst. This thorough and handy book covers the basics–a family emergency plan, what to include in an emergency kit, tips on food and water storage–and the complex–natural disasters, house fires and home invasions.
Find out how easy it is to plan for the unexpected without being overwhelmed. You can help your children stay safe at school, in the neighborhood and online. Learn to take control before chaos hits. Become a Survival Savvy Family.
Author: Julie Sczerbinski
Doctor Prepper’s Making the Best of Basics Family Preparedness Handbook – Version 12.5
Family preparedness guide for the 21st century. With more than 800,000 books previously sold this book sets the preparedness industry standard. Given today’s uncertainty whether caused by natural, man-caused (such as financial, economic, or political activity), or personal disasters you can’t afford to be unprepared.
If you want the security of being able to live from your personal resources for as long as needed, regardless of external condition, Making the Best of Basics will guide your family in becoming prepared.
Author: James Talmadge Stevens aka Doctor Prepper
The Prepper’s Financial Guide: Strategies to Invest, Stockpile and Build Security for Today and the Post-Collapse Marketplace
A disaster-proof investment strategy to ensure stability and security before, during and beyond a marketplace meltdown.
You’re prepared for hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, earthquakes and other natural disasters, but are you ready for the inevitable man-made disasters to come? This book teaches you the other half of disaster planning—how to survive the economic turmoil that hits regions and nations after the storm has passed.
Prepper’s Financial Guide will teach you how to:
•Become self-sufficient
•Purchase precious metals
•Safeguard your valuable possessions
•Invest in foreign and alternate currencies
•Barter and trade for needed supplies
•Build an off-grid marketplace
•Reduce debt so you can save for the future
•And much more
Author: Jim Cobb
Saving Jimani: Life and Death in the Haiti Earthquake
The earth shakes, buildings fall, hundreds of thousands of people die in minutes. Others lie broken and infected in the streets of Haiti begging, and waiting for help. An empty orphanage is the battleground for life and death in the Haiti Earthquake.
Two hours from civilization, a small team of doctors, nurses and paramedics frantically struggle to save two thousand patients as the hope of survival dwindles minute by minute. The battle has just begun. And the medical team asks, “Can we save any of these people?”
Managing the twelve-person team, Rene Steinhauer, a weary combat medic, stands witness to human suffering greater than he ever encountered in Iraq. Rene partners with Danya Swanson, a “daddy’s girl” with a nursing degree who thinks she has what it takes to save the day and suddenly finds herself as the disaster manager for Jimani.
Rene dries his tears and gets up to fight in a brutal battle where amputated arms and legs are piled up until somebody, anybody, has time to drag them to the fire pit. The battle rages, hopes are raised and dashed and thousands of lives hang by a thread.
Can an inexperienced nurse, with no disaster experience, really save Jimani?
Author: Rene Steinhauer RN
The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present
THE AGE OF EARTHQUAKES is a quick-fire paperback, harnessing the images, language and perceptions of our unfurling digital lives.
The authors offer five characteristics of the Extreme Present; invent a glossary of new words to describe how we are truly feeling today; and ‘mindsource’ images and illustrations from over 30 contemporary artists.
Wayne Daly’s striking graphic design imports the surreal, juxtaposed, mashed mannerisms of screen to page. It’s like a culturally prescient, all-knowing email to the reader: possibly the best email they will ever read.
Welcome to THE AGE OF EARTHQUAKES, a paper portrait of Now, where the Internet hasn’t just changed the structure of our brains these past few years, it’s also changing the structure of the planet. This is a new history of the world that fits perfectly in your back pocket.
Authors: Douglas Coupland, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Shumon Basar
Practical Prepping: No Apocalypse Required: An Everyday Approach to Disaster Preparedness
EXCLUSIVE ten-page Pandemic Primer included! Written by Steven Konkoly, author of The Jakarta Pandemic, the Pandemic Primer outlines a simple, no-nonsense strategy to approach a pandemic emergency. Take the first steps to protect your family from an outbreak of enterovirus, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, or Ebola and order now!
PRACTICAL PREPPING: NO APOCALYPSE REQUIRED is a light-hearted, instructional look at practical readiness concepts that nearly ANYONE can embrace–without seriously interrupting your life or draining your bank account.
Author: Steven Konkoly
Book Festival 8 – Fiction
After the Crumble (Volume 1)
Our future has crumbled. In the late 2020s, the grid finally flickered out for the last time, succumbing to attacks from a newly formed Resistance, fuel scarcity, and general entropy. It is now the year 2037 and many have died, with the few that managed to escape death solely concerned with their daily survival.
Gavin Collier is one of those lucky few, but survival alone isn’t enough for him anymore. Recognizing that the meaning of life didn’t crumble along with the rest of the world, he embarks on a dangerous and personal journey for reasons that few can understand. After leaving his home for the first time in years, Gavin must commit murder in order to save his life, only surviving through good luck and sheer force of will. The series of events that follow will alter Gavin’s life forever.
Author: Devon Porter
A Time to Endure (Strengthen What Remains)
The exciting saga of Major Caden Westmore continues with A Time to Endure. In the first book Through Many Fires: Strengthen What Remains, nuclear terrorism destroys six American cities. Caden struggles to get home across a stricken, terrified nation.
In the second book, A Time to Endure, the nation’s economy teeters on the verge of collapse. The dollar plunges, inflation runs rampant, and the next civil war threatens to decimate the wounded country. In the face of tyranny, panic, and growing hunger, Caden struggles to keep his family and town together.
But how can he save his community when the nation is collapsing around it?
Author: Kyle Pratt
Aftermath: A Story of Survival
When the picture of a dog taking a dump shows up on every computer and cell phone screen with the words, “IT Happens,” Jimmy Walker knew things would never be the same again. What he didn’t know was just how bad it would be.
Bugging out to his cabin in the Manistee National Forest, Jimmy figured he would ride out the storm there. He knew there would be trouble from the criminal element and those who had not prepared but hadn’t counted on the United Nations moving in and gathering people up to be ‘relocated,’ too. Banding together with others in the valley, Jimmy works to meet the threats that seem to come from all directions at once.
Author: LeAnn M Edmondson
Resurrecting Home: A Novel (The Survivalist Series)
Against all odds, Morgan Carter and his family have endured despite the deteriorating conditions surrounding them. Armed with survivalist tactics, Morgan’s crew, alongside their new friends from the recently-liberated DHS camp, have worked together to build a sustainable community. But not all situations can be prepared for. When a massive wildfire threatens their very existence, they must decide: fight or flight?
From the author of the hit Survivalist Series books, Resurrecting Home is an action-packed adventure that depicts the harrowing possibilities of a world gone awry, and the courage it takes to protect what matters most.
Author: A. American
Game Changer
A float trip takes a dangerous turn for the worse, as six teenagers are stranded in the wilderness of the southern Missouri Ozarks. At the end of summer, six teens set off on a last adventure before high school resumes. Shortly into the rural Missouri float trip, the group is tested by a number of obstacles, both natural and manmade.
When a friend is unexpectedly incapacitated, an unlikely pair sets off on their own to find help. The challenges compound at a breakneck pace, and the difficulties they stumble across along the way test them to their limits. Will Tom bring back help in time to save his best friend?
Author: Chris Bostic
The Final Word
As you peruse this latest list of books, you may notice that they are heavily skewed toward non-fiction. I have chosen to take this tack this time around because as much as we may think we already know, there is lot left to learn. That applies the Survival Basics as much as anything else. You would be surprised (well maybe not) at how often I shift my personal prepping strategy based upon new knowledge and new information.
At the end of the day, however, Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian fiction is important, too. I have yet to read a book in the genre that has not given me pause to think about how I would resolve to prevail given a similar set of circumstances.
New week I will begin to weigh in on each of these books. The author interview questions you have proposed are being reviewed this week and are likely to appear in an interview or two. In addition, a number of authors have agreed to let me publish some excerpts. How cool is that?
Once again, I would like to extend a big thank you to the authors and their publishers for submitting their books for inclusion in BDS Prepper Book Festival 8. I am looking forward to your participation!
Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!
Gaye
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Related Articles:
20 Comfort Foods for the Survival Pantry
6 More Uncommon First Aid Items
Survival Basics: The Six Enemies of Food Storage
Bargain Bin: For your convenience, here is a complete list of all of the books in BDS Prepper Book Festival 8.
Prepper Book Festival 8 – Non-Fiction
Tools for Survival: What You Need to Survive When You’re on Your Own
The Organic Canner
The NEW 2000-Hour Flashlight
The Garden Pool – Feed Your Family From Your Backyard Ecosystem
Survival Savvy Family: How to Be Your Best During the Absolute Worst
Doctor Prepper’s Making the Best of Basics Family Preparedness Handbook – Version 12.5
The Prepper’s Financial Guide
Saving Jimani: Life and Death in the Haiti Earthquake
The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present
Practical Prepping: No Apocalypse Required: An Everyday Approach to Disaster Preparedness
Prepper Book Festival 8 – Fiction
After the Crumble (Volume 1)
A Time to Endure (Strengthen What Remains)
Aftermath: A Story of Survival
Resurrecting Home: A Novel (The Survivalist Series)
Game Changer
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A Practical Guide to Storing Food For the Long Term
When most people start thinking about family preparedness, they focus on food. Not shelter, gear, sanitation, power, self-defense or the myriad of other concerns that need to be addressed following an emergency or disaster situation. Quite simply, food is the number one concern people have second only to their concern for having an adequate supply of water.
The Prepper’s Guide to Food Storage is a book about food: What to store, how to store it and best practices. It is a roadmap for showing ordinary citizens that long-term food storage is not something that will overwhelm or burden the family budget.
>>>>> 99 cents for the eBook – also available in print! <<<<<
This book is based upon my own tried and true personal experience as someone who has learned to live the preparedness lifestyle by approaching emergency preparedness and planning in a systematic, step-by-step manner.
BDS Prepper Book Festival 8 Is Here! by Gaye Levy first appeared on Backdoor Survival.
