one book...

[fester_hicks]

You have room in your bugout bag for ONE book only...

Times ticking.... You look at your bookshelf and grab..........

[AN OLD SHOE]

this is a tough one...either a bible or a dictionary.....im gonna go with the holy book :)

[fester_hicks]

Me, in gonna grab either:

SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea (http://www.amazon.com/SAS-Survival-Handbook-Survive-Climate/dp/0060578793/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208381855&sr=8-1) (Paperback) or http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Survival-Handbook-Lofty-Wiseman/dp/1602392161/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208381855&sr=8-3(Paperback), both by John "Lofty" Wiseman.

Or one other might be: Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills (http://www.amazon.com/Primitive-Wilderness-Living-Survival-Skills/dp/0897459970/ref=pd_bbs_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208381620&sr=8-11)(Paperback) by John McPherson & Geri McPherson

[Victor Clark]

I would probably pick Insomnia by Stephen King, since I haven't read it yet.

[Dagnammit]

I would pick a classic, but not something famous and obvious, like Shakespeare. Perhaps a minor classic, like The War of the Worlds or The Catcher in the Rhye. You see, in a crisis the internet would quickly come down a lot of books in libraries, museums etc. would be destroyed, and there is the potential for a lot of human culture to be simply wiped out. Major "important" books might be saved by forward-looking survivors, but a lot of less famous classic culture might be overlooked and lost. I think it's important to preserve our literary heritage in such an event.

[Lian]

My own homemade survival book. Bits and bobs of useful information for any and all survival situations one may encounter. Well not so much a survival book but as a reference to things you might not be able to commit to memory, it more relies on you having the common sense to know what you need and it goes about how to get it. Everything from water purification, to making gunpowder.

Still If I was to die I'd be confident that if I put this book in the hands or my family or my girlfriend or some random survivor guy I came across they'd be able to find a use for it.

[Zombie_215]

The Crystal Shard: R.A. Salvatore

[Crickler]

Easy, the Zombie Survival Guide :)
Either that or the Battle Royale novel

[fester_hicks]

i'll pick up other books on the road if i need, Im going strictly with some survival stuff... plants, etc..

[RogueAI]

My own homemade survival book. Bits and bobs of useful information for any and all survival situations one may encounter. Well not so much a survival book but as a reference to things you might not be able to commit to memory, it more relies on you having the common sense to know what you need and it goes about how to get it. Everything from water purification, to making gunpowder.

Still If I was to die I'd be confident that if I put this book in the hands or my family or my girlfriend or some random survivor guy I came across they'd be able to find a use for it.

You should publish that. A few family owned outdoors stores around here sell my survival and end of the word living guide. It turns a tidy profit, and is fairly populare with people who like to go out in the wilderness for weeks on end.

----

Anyway, I'd probably take Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire with me. Its small, light weight, and a good read. When a few people stands up agiest a massive horde of zombies it really reminds me of the Spartens fighting the Persians. Good for moral. ^_^

(Sorry about any misspellings. I'm typing from school today, and this computer doesn't have an automatic spell checker "Spartends". i r smart )

[Lian]

Yea that's just the thing it's not really a survival book...or indeed a book at all. Think of it more like a scrapbook and a journal. My science teacher said once that if he took the science book he was supposed to use and pulled all the useful information out it would go from 400 pages to about 40.

Same concept with my survival book, except it's still 400 pages long, it takes those massive amounts of space taken up by other books and condenses it down. It also makes some assumptions that you have basic knowledge already, Kinda like I don't cover basic first aid crap, most people know enough about hypothermia to treat it, so I don't cover it. What I do cover is how to set a broken bone, how to do surgical stitches, amputations... It assumes you know how to make a fire with flint and steel and goes straight into recognizing and finding flint and steel.

While all in all it's in it's own way more useful in a scenario where you only have room for one book and despite the fact I would like to put it into the hands of everyone that might need it, it's not really "readable" and wouldn't really make a good publication, assuming i could even find a person to publish it. Not to mention the parts I found it easier to just clip out from a magazine or what not and just glued in that I'd have to redo and what not due to copyright laws and what not.

[RogueAI]

...

Yeah, sounds like it'd require a fair amount of work for relatively little return. I did mine more of a hobby, though it is not exactly readable either; its in encyclopedia form.

By the way, Lian, when the zombies rise en mass I'd really appreciate it if you'd ware a name tag while carrying that book. Maybe something more recognizable from a distance or something. I may not have time to search every corpse, but I wouldn't be surprised if I found stuff in your book mine doesn't have (I never covered amputation, for example).

[mattifikation]

I'd go for anything with information on edible plants, how to find and purify water, ways to lure and trap animals, and so-on.

[Lian]

lol Sure I'll slap a name tag on in the unlikely event I die I suppose. :lol: and yea you could say my book was a bit of a hobby as well. It's a compilation of roughly three years or work.


Yea one thing I never covered in my book was edible plants. That's a hard subject to touch on really. Some of the edible variety's are just so damn close to not edible one's you either really need to know your stuff or have good clear pictures. I mean I through a few things in there that are really hard to mess up but I'm going with more of a if it runs, flies, swims or crawls, on this planet it's usually okay to eat approach.

[john154]

The Art Of War - Sun Tzu

You may have heard of it. The bloke had some good ideas.

[Lian]

Sun Tzu is the man. He summed up war, politics, and human nature into an easy to understand context that still applies hundreds of years later. That man rules.

[Yellow Hat17]

this is a tough one...either a bible or a dictionary.....im gonna go with the holy book :)

Same thing, but isn't it more efficient to bring a Translating dictionary if it's a Class 4 attack, since you may flee to another country? I think a Bible honestly though... Unless I were to loose faith at all news of an outbreak, I don't think I'd be heading for my dictionary. If you just read the Zombie survival guide, I would pack that, presuming that in the situation you haven't memorized it yet. But I would probably pack a bible.:scare:

[IamtehRussman]

Hmmmm.....I think in a zombie outbreak, a Bible wouldn't be worth much. Sure, it may give you hope, or preserve your religion, but how will it help you in a zombie outbreak? I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of survival manual, kind of like what everyone else is saying. But I think, in a class 4 outbreak, I would bring a book on how to build a house. After a while, your fort is going to need repairs, or you might want to add onto it becuase of new survivors, the old falls down and you need a new one, etc. That's just my opinion.

[kiltedninja]

I'd go with the SAS survival guide. the zombie survival guide often refers to other survival guides, this is those other survival guides. That and I've about memorized the zombie survival guide.

[homelitexl]

make love the bruce campbell way

[ZombieKat]

It would definitely be Dante I love that book

[NotoriousDIT]

It would definitely be Dante I love that book

you mean the italian writer? author of The Divine Comedy?

anyway. I'm an atheist. I would take with me the bible, because a religious person sees you carrying that around in this crisis, and he assumes you're a friend. Seems like a good way to make an ally, even if a bit deceptive.

Either that or:

On the Road (Kerouac)
The Hobbit (Tolkien)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)

[NotoriousDIT]

wait, I change my answer to Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

[Birdman44]

The Art Of War - Sun Tzu

You may have heard of it. The bloke had some good ideas.

Im buying that soon. It seams like a great book, especially coming from a guy who's thousands of years old. I'll probably take that if I get it soon enough.

[mattifikation]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

It offers great advice: Don't Panic.

[Bob]

Hmm
Perhaps an older copy of the Boy Scout handbook.

[The Voice Of Desperation]

I would probably my Human anatomy and psychology book.(Both my parents are in the medical profession and I like reading some of they're books from time to time)It will definitely come in handy at least once and if not it is at least interesting.

[kiltedninja]

I'd take two books, because the two I have in mind are very small.

Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel(only about 70 pages, I'd carry it in my pocket)

Sun Tzu's art of war.

Zen and the Art of Archery is a really rare book now.

[ZombieKat]

you mean the italian writer? author of The Divine Comedy?

anyway. I'm an atheist. I would take with me the bible, because a religious person sees you carrying that around in this crisis, and he assumes you're a friend. Seems like a good way to make an ally, even if a bit deceptive.

Either that or:

On the Road (Kerouac)
The Hobbit (Tolkien)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)


Yeah but it was translated to english & it has all three books that Dante wrote(Inferno, Purgatory & Paradise)

[kiltedninja]

Books are something that I don't think I could live without, so I'd need to get a second bag, like a messenger bag or something, and carry my books in there.

[Zombie opressor]

maz brooks "the zombies surbival guide"....
do i even have to explain
if thats not available i would go with i am legend by richard matterson one of the best books i have ever read

[kiltedninja]

Max Brooks did pretty good on covering some of the bases, but there's some things that he shoulda done more research on.

[Nameless1]

When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes

http://www.amazon.com/When-All-Hell-Breaks-Loose/dp/142360105X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242636543&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.com/When-All-Hell-Breaks-Loose/dp/142360105X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242636543&sr=1-1)

or Day of the Triffids
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Triffids-20th-Century-Rediscoveries/dp/0812967127/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242636635&sr=1-1