Tess Pennington was one of my first readers and regular commenters on my blog. I remember reading her comments and thinking, “What a fabulous name! I should get to know this person!”

Well, since then, I learned that Tess blogs at Ready Nutrition, and we’ve become good friends. As you might imagine, I was thrilled when her first book, a cookbook, arrived on my doorstep. The Prepper’s Cookbook is an attractive book with more than 200 pages, nicely indexed.

At first I thought it was “just” a cookbook, which would have been fine, but when I opened the book and began reading, I was thrilled to find that it was so much more.

Tess draws on her background as a caseworker specialist with the American Red Cross to include a first chapter devoted to an introduction to prepping and basic water and food storage principles.

It’s more than a cookbook. It’s also a handy guide for beginning preppers who have wondered, “So what do I actually do with all this extra food I’m buying?”

Tess provides dozens of simple, food storage friendly recipes and some great tips along the way. I loved the pop-out boxes with titles such as, “Canning Off the Grid”, “Use Your Noodle” (ideas for using ramen noodles in a variety of ways), and “The Tasty Tater.”

I invited Tess to be the very first guest on my new radio show, and you can listen to our interview here in Episode 1.

As a bonus, I have a copy of her book to give away to a lucky winner! Simply leave a comment following this post, and a winner will be selected at random on Monday, April 22.

You’ll enjoy Tess’s collection of preparedness tips and recipes in The Prepper’s Cookbook.

© 2013, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

We have an impressive line-up of all women hosts, including:

• Angela Paskett of Food Storage & Survival
• Kendra Lynne of New Life on a Homestead
• Vickilynn Haycraft, author and blogger
• Donna Miller of Miller’s Grain House
• my own show, The Survival Mom Radio Hour
• …and many more!

Our shows are available on our site and can be downloaded. You’ll also find them on iTunes and, soon, Zune and Roku. We really are trying hard to make our content available to everyone!

Although our hosts are all women, our information is for everybody! Healthy living, survival tips, interviews with fascinating people in the survival and preparedness world…our aim is to cover it all.

We’re women. We can do it!

Visit our website to learn more about our shows and hosts. If you want to get an email update once a week or so, be sure to fill out the bright red form on the sidebar.

Thanks so much for listening! We really think you’ll love this new way to get survival and preparedness info!

© 2013, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

I scarcely have time to take a shower and make myself presentable each day, much less wile away the hours with my nose in a book.

This is why it’s such a delight to happen upon a book, purely by chance, that grabs my attention from the first page and keeps me entertained through the last.

Collapse by Richard Stephenson is that type of book.

Incredibly, Richard never had big dreams of becoming a novelist and Collapse is his first book, based on his musings of what it would take for America to collapse. It isn’t a cheery book, but it’s gritty, realistic, and definitely held my attention.

For someone with ADD, that says a lot!

As the book opens, America has been hit with a second Great Depression that has devastated the economy, a killer hurricane that has reduced Florida to third world status, and a vicious, ongoing war with the Empire of Iran. America is crippled and the President faces enemies within his own administration.

Collapse introduces us to three main characters. First is Howard Beck: billionaire, genius, close friend to the current President, and affected by Asperger’s Syndrome. Richard was smart to introduce this character first because everything about Howard is, well, really eccentric, and I kept turning page after page, just to learn more about this guy!

Richard Dupree is a felon in a high-security prison, but we soon learn that he is a former Navy SEAL whose backstory makes him a sympathetic character. Maxwell Harris rounds out the group, and we learn that he is burned out, looking forward to retirement, and is faced with a Category 5 hurricane aimed directly at his small Texas town.

The main characters in Collapse are very well developed and intriguing, and their individual story lines are strong and skillfully woven together. I like complex plots and was a big fan of Tom Clancy, so this feature was a big plus for me. The author also includes a few unexpected twists and the book is fast-paced.

[tweetherder]There are a lot of survival and prepper related novels on the market, not all of them worth reading. Collapse is different.[/tweetherder] It reads more like a novel from a best-selling author than something pecked out on a keyboard over someone’s lunch hour!

For more details, check out my video review.

© 2013, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

Immediately I began to hear from my readers that they loved the book, too.

Land follows the story of a group of Canadian high school students stranded in Disneyland following an EMP. One group of kids decides to head overland for home. In the second novel in the series, Sea, a second group chooses to head for the coast and find a boat to take them north to their home, and a third group believes that if they stay put, authorities are sure to help them. The third book, City, was just released on February 3, and I’m reading it right now.

In this video I review Land and give it a big thumbs up. If you have read any of Theresa’s books, please post your comments below.

© 2013, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

PurifiCup is sponsoring this terrific holiday giveaway of 5 personalized and signed copies of Survival Mom, the book.PurifiCup is a new sponsor of the blog, with a product that I’ve found to be effective and important to survival.

It’s easy to enter this Rafflecopter** giveaway. You can ‘Like’ PurifiCup on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, leave a couple different types of comments here on the blog, and ‘Like’ and follow Survival Mom. If you are already a Liker or a Twitter follower, great! Just be sure to click on those selections in the Rafflecopter form.

The contest ends at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, December 16, and winners will be notified the following day. I will mail your book to you, or to any other address you like, just as soon as I get your mailing address.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**By the way, some of you have asked why I sometimes use Rafflecopter for blog giveaways. First, by leaving your name and email with a third party, Google does not have direct access to that information. Rafflecopter doesn’t use the information for any purpose whatsoever, other than to make my job easier. When the giveaway is finished, I click a button on the Rafflecopter website, and winners are chosen completely at random. I can even email you directly from their site. They sell premium memberships to websites that do a lot of contests and giveaways, which is how their site earns money. They do not sell your name and email addresses!

© 2012, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

If you have a smartphone, you can download apps, including the Kindle app, and read directly from your phone. If you don’t have an ebook reader (Kindle and Nook are the two best-known brands), you can read the book directly on your computer via Kindle and here for the Nook. Kobo ebook readers can also get a copy!

Personally, I love the hard copy of my book because of all the checklists and worksheets (see examples here and here), but for $3.99, you really can’t go wrong AND it’s a great way to check out the book before buying a hard copy.

By the way, as an FYI, the book covers water storage and purification, dozens of tips for surviving and doing just fine when the power goes out, 2 chapters on food storage (with recipes!), lists for emergency kits, including kits for pets and special needs family members, stories from real-life Survival Moms, and tons more. As my editor recently said, “I still can’t believe we got all that information packed in that one book!”

Click HERE to purchase!

Happy reading and I hope you love Survival Mom! If you do, put in a kind word for me in an Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Good Reads review! Thanks!

© 2012, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

I created worksheets for water and food storage, home organization, home emergencies, home and personal security, financial survival, making connections with other preparedness-minded moms, and what I call “Preparedness on the Go.” My publisher has graciously allowed me to post some of those emergency preparedness plans here on the blog, so I chose the ones that are unlike similar forms in the Resources section.

Hope these are helpful! (They are also listed on the Resources page, “FREE Downloads”.)

• Family Preparedness Plan: Home and Personal Security
• Family Preparedness Plan: Home Base
• Family Preparedness Plan: Financial Survival
• Family Preparedness Plan: Preparedness on the Go

© 2012, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

“3 Layers of food storage”

“52 Weeks to preparedness with Tess Pennington”

“Ask and Chat with Bernie Carr, the Apartment Prepper”

“Camping with Kids – Co-host Leon Pantenburg”

“Canning 101″

“Emergency kits for the little people (kids)”

“EMP Preparedness with Rob Hanus of The Preparedness Podcast”

“Everything you ever wanted to know about wheat”

“Firearms basic training tips with Mike Hughes of Top Shot” (a few technical glitches in this one)

“Food storage basics”

“Food storage by the recipe”

“Healthy Food Storage with Darren Craddock of EnerHealth Foods”

“How to be a prepper”

“Let there be water!”

“Personal and Self Defense with Greg Ellifritz”

“Simple steps to food dehydration”

“Solve your food storage challenges”

“Survival rules you can’t afford to ignore”

“The organized pantry”

“Top ten foods to store”

© 2012 – 2013, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

Other survival/prepper medical books contain a broader spectrum of information on many ailments, but I really, really like the way that Dr. Hubbard focuses on one medical emergency, burns. I am pretty well equipped and trained to handle typical first aid emergencies, allergic reactions, and tummy problems, but when it comes to burns, well, they scare me. A burn can become infected quickly and become life-threatening, but after reading The  Survival Doctor’s Guide to Burns I feel much better equipped to handle this particular emergency.

This book is written in a conversational, friendly style, which isn’t typical of medical books. Everything was very well explained and there were helpful links to reference pages. I was very impressed with how much I learned and now remember, 2 months later. For example:

• Honey has a high sugar concentration and is acidic, both of which destroy bacteria. That’s why it can work to heal burns and other wounds.
• A way to estimate how much of the body is covered by a burn is knowing that each body part accounts for a certain percentage of the body, which makes it easier to estimate the extent of a burn. The percentages are listed in the book.
• A painless burn isn’t a good thing because a deep burn kills nerve endings. The pain comes later, though.

Also included are lists of must-haves in an emergency kit and what is needed for burn dressings. Dr. Hubbard explains how to sterilize medical instruments and purify water. There is just a ton of usable, easy to understand information in this short book.

I recommend this book so highly that I can say your survival library won’t be complete without it, and at only $3.99, it’s definitely affordable. Currently, it’s an e-book, which is easily stored on any e-reader but I would also like to see a hard copy available as well.

© 2012, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

image by gruntzooki

It’s super easy to list must-have survival books and non-fiction manuals, but recently a reader left a comment on the blog about the importance of reading to escape. So far, the U.S. Army Survival Manual hasn’t caught my imagination and carried me away to fantastical, fairytale locations.

So, I asked the Facebook crowd where they go to find cheap, or even better,free books, and they came up with a very creative list. Here it is:

• From Rachel: “Thrift stores and yard sales are good options.”
• Bonnie said, “Our library usually has a ‘free’ table.”
• From Victoria: “Our library has a sale once a year, most books are 25 cents. Aside from that, I utilize our library for books/movies/dvds. Also get ones from my mother that she has read and wants to get rid of!”
• From Erik: “Library sales, Goodwill, Salvation Army, thrift stores, yard sales. Every year where I live they have a giant free book giveaway at an old nearby mall. Also college book stores dump thousands of old textbooks out at the end of every semester.”
• Michelle says, “There are loads of free books available for Kindles. I know paper books are important too, in case of grid issues, but it is an option. I’ve gotten quite a few free cookbooks with great prep info (canning books, how to feed a family cheaply, etc.) free. They also have lots of the classics free. I don’t have a Kindle but I loaded the free program to be able to read them on my PC. For paper books I would say Goodwill, yard sales, library sales. I can come out of Goodwill with a whole bag of books for my kids for under $10.”
• From Smallacre Homestead: “Ever since the economic crises started, there have been a lot of “resale” stores popping up, usually run by charities (i.e. Catholic charities). One of those nearest us has a large book section. Hubby has been perusing Amazon for the 1 cent books, but the shipping is almost as much as buying a new paperback.”
• David’s tip: “I have found that Amazon Kindle has a ton of free books for download. I figured out that you can search for specific genres the same as you do a Google search. For example, Search for kindle + free + homesteading and I found about 30+ free books on the subject. I save these books on an SD card in a tablet with the free Kindle app downloaded. Yard sales usually yield good results as well.”
• From Erik: “At recycling centers sometimes they will let you have books if you ask.”
• Margaret says, “Sometimes you can find people giving away free books on Craigslist. Check the “free section.”
• Bethanne shared this link for free Kindle books.
• From Lola: “Our local library has a paperback exchange… you can take as many paperbacks from that section as you want, and either replace them with books you have read or not.”
• Carol shared this: “Garage sales, thrift stores, but also sales at bookcloseouts.com and also freebies/ cheapies for kindle. If you get a solar recharger for it, the kindle can be a very portable way to store a lot of books.”
• Gayle is already prepared, “Too funny!  This past summer I started accepting the libraries trash books. Classics actually, they said no one reads anymore and were going to throw them in the trash. I figured I’d add them to my stash because frankly I love books. I never thought about entertainment for the apocalypse lol! I am glad my selfish side can now be justified! Thank you!”
• Greg/Teresa said, “Best place is Swap.com- all you pay is the shipping for the media form you are mailing.

Don’t forget books for the kids. Even if your kids are little, go ahead and buy chapter books for reading aloud. I read the Magic Tree House series to my two long before they could read that level of book on their own, and I’m currently reading Robinson Crusoe to my son. Oh, and don’t forget audio books!

Do you have other tips for free/cheap books? And, if you haven’t ‘Liked’ The Survival Mom Facebook page, join in! That’s where you’ll find all kinds of discussions, tips from readers, newsworthy articles, inspiring quotes and a lot more.

© 2012, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.