Fiction and Non-Fiction Books

I love real books. I have thousands of them and I seem to acquire a few more every month. Most but not all are related to prepping in one way or another but I also love SciFi and thrillers. I just enjoy sitting back and turning the pages whenever I can. Much better than reading from a computer screen.

I’ve read most of the classic Doomsday scenarios including most of NR’s list although some were a long time ago. You can learn a lot from them and they make you think. It was from books that I first found my interest in prepping. Reading about ‘The End of the World’ happening in a very plausible way just has that impact on you.

That was when I started reading more survivalist books and preparing for a Nuclear War.

Luckily one didn’t happen as in reality I had none of the stuff I realy needed despite me being better prepared than most and having the benefit of someone elses wisdom in the book scenario. I had not really thought it through and was prepping like I lived in the US and not the UK. I was being unrealistic without recognising it because I had built up my Survival Kit as per the books I had been reading. Now I look back to those days, I was in my early teens, and smile to myself. If I had known then what I know now. Isn’t life always that way. That is one of the reasons I started a UK based site, to give prepping a UK bias.

Now of course I’ve read a lot more non-fiction books on self sufficiency and smallholding as well as having experience of the world and I realise that I was misled by these works of fiction. Sure they do talk about the way we think things will turn out but they are simply made up stories. Stories that are there to entertain you and based on fact but stories nevertheless.

So read your copies of Alas, Babylon, Earth Abides, There Falls No Shadow and The Death of Grass among others. They will undoubtably make you think and you will add some items to your shopping lists but think outside the box on every page. This is just a story what would I have done under those circumstances and what could have happened? After all things have moved on from those days for a start and not everyone is so honourable and they leave out the really dark side of our species. Today in our civilised society people are doing unspeakable things despite the laws. Think what they will be like with no laws to inhibit them. Those people are more likely to survive because they won’t have any concerns or scruples about what they do, they won’t hesitate nor show mercy. We will and that puts us at a disadvantage.

Fiction books are good in that they make you think. They are bad in the way they demand you see it from their viewpoint and focus your thinking on specific things.