460 Useful Books You Can Download For Free:
Did you know that there are free books available on the internet? Some of these free books are very useful, for us survival-minded folks. There are books on man y subjects of interest, including woodcraft skills, farming, metal-working, taking care of horses, homemade energy, do-it-yourself do-it-yourself medical care, nuclear war survival, military training manuals, and many others. A number of non-profit organizations have been scanning books into digital versions, and these electronic copies are available for free download, so you can copy them and store them on your computer, and it costs you nothing. You You can copy as many man y books as you want, and build up your own personal library of useful information. There are now many thousands of books on the net, along with everything else, so it can be b e frustrating and time-consuming to find information you might want, wa nt, to add to your electronic library. To To help make your search easier, here is a modest list of 460 digital books that I have found useful, entertaining, or both (listed by title and author). Once you have a list of titles, it becomes much easier to find those b ooks that would be useful. In fact, most of the books on this list can be found on a single website, called the Internet Archive (www.archive.org www.archive.org). ).
Here is my current list, of 460 books:
A Manual Of The Hand Lathe (W (Watson) atson) A Pocket Manual For The Practical Mechanic (making wagons) (Hampton) A Power Primer (internal combustion engines) (GM) A Practical Manual Of The Compass (Laning) A Practical Treatise Treatise On Coach Building (making wagons) (Burgess) A Practical Treatise Treatise on Olive Culture (growing olives) (Flamant) A Treatise Treatise On Belts and Pulleys (Cromwell) Aerial Navigation (US Military) Aids To Survival (Australian Police) Aircraft Mechanics Handbook (Colvin) Amateurs Workshop Workshop and Laboratory (Phin) Ambush Counterambush (Canadian Army) American Boys Book Of Camp-Lore And W Woodcraft oodcraft (D C Beard) American Boys Book Of Signs Signals And Symbols (D C Beard) American Family Robinson (Fiction) (Belisle) American Grape Training (growing grapes) (Bailey)
American Small Arms (Farrow) An American Robinson Crusoe (Fiction) (Allison) An Illustrated History Of Arms And Armor (Demmin) Angling A Practical Guide (Burgess) Animal Fats and Oils (how to use them) (Andes) Archery (Thompson) Arctic Survival Manual (Army) Army Survival Manual (Army) Artificial Flies And How To Make Them (Shipley) At Home In The Wilderness (Hardwicke) Atomic Bombing How To Protect Yourself Yourself (Science Service) Autocamping (Brimmer) Bamboo Work Work (making things from bamboo) (Hasluck) Barn Implements and Machines (Scott) Basement Fallout Shelters (Civil Defense) Basic Knots (4 H) Battle Fire Training (military combat shooting) (Turner) Beginners Book Of Gardening (Roberts) Bible (King James Version) Bible (New International Version) Version) Bicycle Repairing (Burr) Blacksmithing (E-Book) (no author) Boat Building And Boating (D C Beard) Boy Scouts Handbook (Seton) Boys Book Of Engine Building (Collins) Bread Cakes and Biscuits (Pownall) Brewing And Distillation (Thomson) British War War Dogs (training) (Richardson) Bunkers (fortifications) (Bloock) Bushcraft (Graves) Camoflage (Army) Camp Life And Trapping (extensive collection of trap designs) (Gibson) Camp Lore And Woodcraft (D C Beard) Camp Stoves And Fireplaces (USDA)
Campfire Cookery (Clyatt) Camping And Woodcraft (Kephart) Canning And How To Use Canned Foods (Bitting) Canoe and Boat Building (Stephens) Canoeing And Camping (Cruikshank) Captive Secrets A Collection Of Formulas (Weber) (Weber) Caravanning And Camping Out (Stone) Care Of Hand H and Tools (Army) Carriage Hardware (catalog of wagon parts) p arts) (Gilles) Cave Exploration In California (Merriam) Charkha Instructions (cigar box spinning wheel) (Sult) Cheese and Cheese Making (Long) Cigar Box Charkha (spinning wheel) (Sult) Cinva Ram Users Guide (VITA) (VITA) Clean Water And How To Get It On The Farm (Trullinger) Cliff Castles And And Cave Dwellings Of Europe (Baring-Gould) Coconuts (growing and processing) (Newland) Combat Operations (Frisbee) Combat Skills (Army) Common Sense Gardens (Sewell) Compound Guns (Owen) Compressed Earth Block Building Guide (Guillaud) Cooking With Whole Wheat (no author) Cottage Economy (making beer & bread &raising livestock) (Cobbett) Cottage Farming (Hickey) Crosscut Saw Guide (USDA) Cryptography (codes) (Hulme) Cryptography (codes) (Langie) Culinary Herbs (Kains) Culpeppers Complete Herbal (herbal medicine) (Culpepper) Cutting Tools (Smith) Dairy Your Way Way (USDA) (U SDA) Deadfalls And Snares (Harding) Desert Expeditions (Sheppard)
Developing Remote Areas (Peace Corps) Dog Gas Masks (Army) Downward Spiral (Fiction) Drying Foods (no author) Earth Bag Building (Peace Corps) Earth Bag Emergency Shelter Design (Peace Corps) Earthbag Building (Phadke) Edible And Useful Plants Of The West West (Sweet) Edible Wild Plants (Medsger) Educational Needlecraft (Swanson) Elementary Forge Practice (blacksmithing) (Harcourt) Emergency Sandbag Shelter Plan (Cal-Earth Institute) Emergency War War Surgery Manual (Army) Encyclopedia Of Needlework (Dillmont) Escape And Evasion (Army) Everywomans Canning Book (Hughes) Family Fallout Shelter (Civil Defense) Farm and Garden Rule Book (Bailey) Farm Blacksmithing (Drew) Farm Buildings With Plans (Shearer) Farm Buildings A Compilation Of Plans (Breeders Bazette) Farm Mechanics (Shearer) Farm Motors (Potter) Farm Roads Fences and Gates (Scott) Fencing (with swords) (Manrique) Fertilizers (how to make them) (Gregory) Field And Forest Handy Book (D C Beard) Fieldcraft (Canadian Army) First Aid Dentistry (Ryan) First Aid Aid to the Injured (St John Ambulance) First Aid to the Injured (Warwick) (Warwick) Flu Pandemic Guide (CPC) Flu Pandemic How To Prepare For (Stewart) (password is fluwikie) Flu Pandemic Preparing For (Woodson) (Woodson)
Flying Machines Construction And Operation (Jackman) Food Plants Of Pacific Islands (Merrill) Forge Practice (blacksmithing) (Bacon) Forge Practice and Heat Treatment Of Steel (blacksmithing) (Bacon) Forge Work Work (blacksmithing) (Ilgen) Freshwater Fishing (Bristowe) Friction Lubrication Fats and Oils (how to make lubricants) (Dieterichs) Fun With Ropes And Spars (John Thurman) Fur Farming (Harding) Garden Guide (Dick) Garden Vegetables (Burr) Garden Vegetables Vegetables And How To Cultivate Them (Burr) Gardening For Profit (Henderson) Getting Food From Water Water (Logsdon) Grape Culture and Wine Making (Husmann) Growing and Grafting Olive Seedlings (Bioletti) Guide To Lock Picking (M I T) Guide To The Yukon Gold Fields (Wilson) Hand Made Furniture And How To Make It (Glidden) Hand To Hand Combat (Army) Handbook For Building Homes Of Earth (Peace Corps) Handbook For Steam Engine Operators (Barr) Handbook Of Angling (fishing) (Fitzgibbon) Handbook of First Aid (Civil Defense) Handbook Of Fishing (Routledge) Handbook Of Saltwater Fishing (Rodman) Handbook Of The Electromagnetic Telegraph Telegraph (Loring) Handbook Of The Gatling Gun (Army) Handbook Of The Steam Engine (Haeder) Handbook Of Tree Planting (Egleston) Handbook Of Trail Campcraft (Ledlie) Handy Farm Devices And How To Make Them (Cobleigh) Harness Making (Hasluck) Harpers Camping And Scouting (Grinnell)
Harpers Gasoline Engine Book (Verrill) (Verrill) Henleys 20th Century Formulas (10,000 formulas) (Hiscox) Herb Lore (herbal medicine) (Fong Wan Wan Herb Co) Hints To Horse-Keepers (Herbert) Hints To Horsemen (Hieover) Home Made Toys (Hall) Home Manufacture Of Furs And Skins (Farnham) Home Nursing And How To Help In Case Of Accident (Benton) Homespun Crafts (Baillie) Honey Farming (beekeeping) (Manley) Horse Packing (Post) How And When To Be Your Own Doctor (Moser) How I Became A Crack Shot With Hints For Beginners (Farrow) How To Be A Crack Shot With With Rifle And Shotgun (Parmelee) How To Become An Expert Shot (Prescott) How To Blunt A Blitzkreig (Army) How To Build A Citizen Army (Fortescue) How To Build A Motor Motor Launch (Mower) How To Build An Aeroplane (Petit) How To Build And Operate A Sawmill (Shertzer) How To Choose A Good Cow (Severance) How To Choose A Horse (Barton) How To Cook Vegetables (Green) How To Feed An Army (Army) How To Feed Poultry (Robinson) How To Fly (Ferris) How To To Hunt North American Big Game Ga me (Hagie) How To Identify The Stars (Milham) How To Install Electric Bells And Alarms (Schneider) How To Keep Bees For Profit (Lyon) How To Keep Hens For Profit (Valentine) How To Keep House In A Foxhole (Army) How To Live At The Front Tips For Soldiers (Macquarrie) How To To Live In The Country (Powell)
How To Live In The Woods (Halsted) How To Make A Motor Or Dynamo (Watson) How To Make A Shoe (Headley) How To Make A Wireless Set (Moreton) How To Make An Arrowhead (Crawford) How To Make And Manage A Garden (Rowles) How To Make Baskets (White) How To To Make Butter On The Farm (McLaughlin) How To To Make Cleaning Products From Foods (Hart) How To To Make Common Things (Bower) How To To Make Indian And Other Baskets (James) How To Make Pottery (White) How To To Make Rugs (Wheeler) How To To Make Soap (Clark) How To Nurse Sick Children (West) How To Play Chess (Rogers) How To To Produce Dried Meat (U N) How To Produce Extracted Honey Hone y (Phillips) How To Ride (horses) (Clark) How To To Select Reloading Equipment (C H Die Company) How To Shoe A Horse (Watts) How To To Succeed With The Home Orchard (Niven) How To Swim (Kellermann) How To Tan Tan Hides (New Mexico State) How To Trap And Snare (Carnegie) How To Treat Treat The Sick Without Without Medicine (Jackson) How To Use Water Power (Chatley) Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Gardening (Wright) (Wright) In The Wake (McBay) Jungle Operations Manual (Army) Kites How To Make And Fly Them (Varney) Knots (New Bedford Cordage) Knots Splices And Rope Work (Hyatt) Knotting And Splicing Ropes And Cordage (Hasluck)
Lights Out (Fiction) Little Great Wheel (spinning wheel) (Heathman) Live Survival In Nuclear Attack (Stanford Institute) Lock Tools (Organization Of Lockpickers) Louden Hay Unloading Tools (and farm equipment) (Louden Co) Machine Shop Tools And Methods (Leonard) Machine Tools Vol 1 (Colvin) Machine Tools Vol 2 (Colvin) Make A Cigar Box Spinning Wheel (Sult) Make Padlock Shims (Unbreakable) Making Fishing Rods (Brotherton) Making Tin Can Toys (Thatcher) Manual For The Solution Of Military Ciphers (Hitt) Manual Of Explosives A Brief Guide (De Kalb) Manual Of Military Field Engineering (Army) Manual Of Telegraph Construction (Douglas) Masonry Construction (ASC) Masonry Fallout Shelters (Clay Institute) Mechanics Of The Sewing Machine (Singer) Military Map Reading (Beach) Military Sketching and Map Reading (Legge) Model Steam Turbines (Harrison) Modern Blacksmithing (Holmstrom) Modern Carpentry A Practical Manual (Hodgson) Modern Farm Buildings (Hopkins) Modern Steam Engines (Rose) More Baskets And How To Make Them (White) Motor Bicycle Building (Hasluck) Motor Camping (Long) Mountain Operations Manual (Army) Mountain Scouting A Handbook (Farrow) Mountaineering Manual (Army) Mushrooms (Falconer) Navigation (finding your way around) (Jacoby)
Navy Arctic Operations Handbook (Navy) NBC Decontamination (Army) NBC Protection (Army) Needlework Book (Beeton) New Ideas For Out Of Doors (D C Beard) Night Fighting (Army) Non-Secret Formulas (Griffiths) Nuclear Survival Manual (Fairlamb) Nuclear War War Survival Skills (fallout shelter designs, etc) (Kearney) On Taking Bearings (how to take bearings) (Walsh) Onboard Welder Plans (Tibor) Our Hardy Grapes (Knowlton) Oxy-Acetylene Welding Welding and Cutting (Manly) Ozone Its Manufacture And Uses (Water Purification) (Vosmaer) Packing And Portaging (Wallace) Paper Toys Toys And How To Make Them (Koch) (Koch ) Pattern Making (woodworking) (Ritchey) Peat Fuel (how to make peat bricks) (Leavett) Pioneering Knots And Lashings (Green) Pioneering Principles (John Thurman) Pioneering Projects (John Thurman) Pioneering Projects (structures made from poles and lashings) (Miller) Pioneering Projects Big And Small (Boy Scouts) Pistol Marksmanship Guide (Army) Planning Pays Off (Fiction) Plattsburg Manual (military training) (Major) Pomeroys Mining Manual For Prospectors (Pomeroy) Possum Living (ideas (ideas for self-reliant self-reliant living) living) (Freed) Post Nuke (comic) (Duller) Poultry Houses and Fixtures (Poultry Journal) Poultry Your Way Way (USDA) (U SDA) Practical Blacksmithing Vol Vol 1 (Richardson) Practical Blacksmithing Vol Vol 2 (Richardson) Practical Blacksmithing Vol Vol 3 (Richardson)
Practical Blacksmithing Vol Vol 4 (Richardson) Practical Dog Training (Hammond) Practical Farm Buildings (Hunter) Practical Farm Drainage (Elliott) Practical Gardening (Glenny) Practical Masonry (Purchase) Practical Mechanics (Perry) Practical Motor Boat Handling (Chapman) Practical Problems For Vehicle Vehicle Draftsmen (making wagons) (Birge) Practical Tanning Tanning (how to tan hides) (Flemming) Practical Things With Simple Tools (Cielo) Preparedness (mormon preparedness book) (LDS Church) Primitive Farming In China And Tibet (LIN) Producergas For Motor Vehicles Vehicles (Cash) Profitable Poultry Production (Kains) Progressive Pioneering (John Thurman) Prospecting For Gold And Silver (Lakes) Prospecting For Gold And Silver In North America (Lakes) Protection From Fire and Thieves (lock and safe construction) (Chubb) Quilts And How To Make Them (Webster) Raise Meat Goats (ATTRA) Raising Chickens On Pasture (SAN) Raising Fish In A Barrel (Mahan) Raising Rabbits (Attfield) Ranger Handbook (Army) Rifle Training For War (Brookhart) Rock Blasting A Practical Treatise (Andre) Rock Excavating And Blasting (Cosgrove) Rocky Mountain Cook Book (high altitude cooking) (Norton) Science Of Trapping (Kreps) Scout Engineering (Boy Scouts) Scouting For Girls (Girl Scout Handbook) Sea Fish And How To Catch Them (Lord) Secret Chambers And Hiding Places (Fea)
Secret Freedom Fighter (resistance fighting) (Mack) Secrets Of Meat Curing (Heller) Self Help Wells (primitive (primitive water well construction) (U N) Sewing Awl Awl Instructions (for speedy stitcher awl) (Stewart) Sewing Machinery (Urquhart) Shaffners Telegraph Telegraph Companion (morse code and telegraphs) (Shaffner) Shelters Shacks And Shanties (D C Beard) Ship Captains Medical Guide (British Maritime and Coast Guard) Shoe Making Old And New (Gannon) Shooting Simplified (Dougall) Shooting To Live (Fairbairn And Sykes) S ykes) Sign Talk A Universal Signal Code (Seton) Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars (Army) Small Arms Instructors Manual (Army) Small Arms Manual (Army) Small Boat Navigation (Sterling) Small Steam Engines (construction) (Watson) (Watson) Small-Scale Fish Farming (U N) Smoked Fish Canning Guide (Oregon State) Sniper Manual (Army) Soiling Crops And How To Build A Silo (Shaw) Solargas Book (Hoye) Special Forces Caching Techniques (Army) Special Forces Use Of Pack Animals (Army) Spices And How To Know Them (Gibbs) Steam Engine Construction (Snow) Steam Engineers Handbook (ICS) Steam Engines (Industrial Press) Steel Traps (Harding) Survival And Austere Medicine (RAW (RAW Board) Swiss Family Robinson (Fiction) (Wyss) (Wyss) Tactics In Counterinsurgency (Army) Tarzan Of The Apes (Fiction) (Burroughs) Telegraph Code (morse code) (Preston)
Tents and Tent Life (Rhodes) Tested Formulas and Useful House and Farm Recipes Re cipes (McKenny) The ABC Of Cooking (Moffat) The Alpha Strategy (stockpiling and economic survival) (Pugsley) The Amateur Mechanics Workshop (Lukin) The American Gardener (Cobbett) The Art Of Curing Pickling And Smoking Meat And Fish (Robinson) The Art Of Grafting and Budding (grafting plants) (Baltet) The Art Of Soap Making (Watt) (Watt) The Art Of War (Tzu) The Book Of Camp Lore And Woodcraft Woodcraft (D C Beard) The Book Of Camping (Verrill) (Verrill) The Book Of Camping And Woodcraft Woodcraft (Kephart) The Book Of Farm Buildings (Stephens) The Book Of Woodcraft Woodcraft (Seton) The Complete Herbalist (herbal medicine) (Brown) The Complete Practical Machinist (Rose) The Dead Shot (Marksman) The Electric Telegraph (Lardner) The End Is Near (Duthel) The Family Save All (cooking) The Farmstead (Roberts) The Fireless Cooker (Lovewell) The First Book Of Farming (Goodrich) The Forcing Fruit and Kitchen Gardener (how to force plants to produce) (Nicol) The Gasoline Engine On The Farm (Putnam) The Gatling Gun (Villars) The Gun (Greener) The Gun And How To Use It (Johnson) The Gun Book (McKee) The Handbook Of Soap Manufacture Man ufacture (Simmons) The Harness Makers Guide (Office of Saddlery) The Horse And How To Care For Him (Davies) The Horse And How To Ride Him (Butler)
The Horses Foot And How To Shoe It (Cole) The Hunters Handbook (Stratton) The Iron Founder (Iron Casting) (Bolland) The Ladies Work Table Table Book (needlecrafts) (Anonymous) The Land That Time Forgot (Fiction) (Burroughs) The Making Of Leather (Procter) The Manufacture Of Boots And Shoes (Golding) The Mechanician (Knight) The Model Engineers Handybook (steam engines) (Cain) The Modern Practical Bread Baker (Wells) The New Metal Worker Pattern Book (sheet metal working) (Kittredge) The Olive In California (growing olive trees) (Lelong) The Outdoor Handy Book (D C Beard) The Perfect Horse (Murray) The Pruning Book (tree pruning) (Bailey) The Science Of Gunnery (Greener) The Sewing Machine (history and construction) (Herzberg) The Shot-Firers Guide A Practical Manual Of Blasting (Maurice) The Soap Makers Handbook (Deite) The Ten Bushcraft Books (Graves) The Tesla Coil Its Construction And Uses (Haller) The Theory And Practice Of Brewing Illustrated (Tizard) The Tinsmiths Helper and Pattern Book (Williams) (Williams) The Trappers Guide (Newhouse) The Young Young Mechanic (tools and steam engines) (Lukin) Tin Sheet Iron and Copper Cop per Plate Worker Worker (sheet metal working) (Blinn) Tinsmithing (ASC) Tomato Planter Storage Tub Plans (Newstead) Toy Making At Home (Adams) Toys Their Design and Construction (Kay) Tracks And Tracking (Brunner) Trail Craft (Fordyce) Training Manual (in map reading, etc) (Spalding) Underground Treasures Where And How To Find Them (Orton)
US Rifles And Machine Guns (Colvin) USDA Food Canning Guide (USDA) USDA Fruit Canning Guide (USDA) USDA Jelly Canning Guide (USDA) USDA Meat Canning Guide (USDA) USDA Pickle Canning Guide (USDA) USDA Tomato Tomato Canning Guide (USDA) USDA Vegetable Canning Guide (USDA) Useful Wild Wild Plants Of The US And Canada (Saunders) Vegetable Gardening (Chisholm) Vegetable Gardening (Watts) Velocipedes Bicycles And Tricycles And How To Make Them (Velux) War Vegetable Gardening And Storing Vegetables (War Garden Commission) Weapons (Sargeaunt) What To Do And How To Do It (D C Beard) What To Draw And How To Draw It (Lutz) Wheat Kernels (Wheat Foods Council) Where There Is No Doctor (Hesperian Foundation) Where There Is No Dentist (Hesperian Foundation) Where There Is No Midwife (actual title is: A Book For Midwives) (Hesperian Foundation) Where Women Women Have No Doctor (Hesperian Foundation) Why And How To Use Salt And Smoked Fish (Moore) Wild Ducks (Oates) Wilderness Homes (log cabins) (Kemp) Windmills Windmills And Wind Motors How To Build Them (Powell) Winter Survival (Marines) Wireless Telegraphy (Eichhorn) Woodcraft (Sears) Woodgas Generator (FEMA) Woodsmanship (Mason) Wood-Working By Hand (Noyes) Wood-Working Tools (ISA) Wound Closure Manual (Ethicon) You Might Be A Survivalist If (survivalist humor) (no author)
Young Farmers Manual (Todd) These are only suggestions, of course, but I consider each of these books boo ks to have merit. Most of these books are available ava ilable as Adobe Acrobat files (pdf files), and the Acrobat reader is ava ilable for free as well. You can also find books by searching for the title, with pdf after it, on any search engine. All 460 of these books will take up about five gigs (gigabytes) of memory storage space, or five thousand megs (megabytes), (megab ytes), which isn’t a lot of memory me mory,, by today’ toda y’ss standards. You can buy an eight gig flash memory drive (also called USB drives, jump drives, or flash drives) from Wal-Mart Wal-Mart now, for only twenty dollars, and a sixteen gig drive currently c urrently costs forty dollars. This means that you can carry the entire en tire book collection around on a tiny drive, with plenty of space left over for other things. What other things? Well, Well, there are also a lot of gun owner’s manuals available on the net. There a re around one thousand gun manuals that you can get for free, and all of them together take up about two gigs of memory. memory. One good website for free gun manuals is www.gunmanuals.net www.gunmanuals.net,, but there are lots of others. So if you put all of the books boo ks and all of the gun manuals on a eight gig drive, you would still have one gig of free space left over. There are lots of other useful items that you can add to your drive, to fill up that last gig. Some people like to scan all of their important documents, and keep electronic copies stored in safe places. There is also a lot of good data on reloading available, so a collection of reloading info is a good idea. I also like to collect survival articles, and kee p them organized (by subject) in my digital storage. I tend to classify survival subjects into twenty basic categories: equipment and supplies, traps and snares, food and water, fire and cooking info, survival shelters, combat shelters, survival strategies, improvised tools and weapons, primitive blacksmithing techniques, improvised tents and packs, improvised clothing, improvised camp equipment, improvised bamboo equipment, improvised transportation, improvised towers and bridges (pioneering skills), caching and bugout, bugout vehicles and trailers, survival kits, misc ideas, and my book list. Of course you can organize your data in any an y way that you wish, I only listed mine as an example. Why should you load all of this data onto your laptop or jump drive, when it is already available on the internet? Well, Well, like any other service, internet access c an be cut off at any time, for many man y different possible reasons, from disruptive disasters, to a government that turns hostile to the ide a of free access to information. Once you have your own copies of all of this useful survival information, it is available to you even if the net is down. If you load all of this survival info onto a jump drive, you can also give it away to all of your friends and relatives, just by copying it from the drive o nto their computers. Extra drives can be loaded with the info, and mailed to friends in remote locations. You You can burn the data onto CDs or DVDs as well, but one CD only holds a little over half a gig, and one DVD only holds four gigs, so the drives are a better option. Every person that acquires this survival information, and learns how to use these skills, will become more independent and self-reliant with every new skill set. Share the data!
Terry B.
