# Post Apocalyptic books



## Daddy O (Jan 20, 2014)

There was a character in Lucifer's hammer who stashed books of knowledge in a safe place so that later he could parlay his way into a safe place. It made sense to keep all of the knowledge he did, in hard copy. Someday you may need to know how to make rubbing alcohol or refine chlorine. What if you need surgery? Is there a book that tells how to do it in case you don;t have a doctor? Can you identify medications if you found them?

I read another book the other day called Calizona where one of the characters was influenced by the guy from Lucifer's Hammer. It was kind of cool how he took off and created this vast knowledgebase. It made me start to rethink the tablet e-book equation. You can store thousands of books of every type on a tablet, and they take almost no power (I have a 6w solar cell and battery block to charge mine) So much is available out there digitally, music, web pages, books, text books, and more. We survivalists always think of guns and beans, but do we ever give thought to knowledge management? If the internet went down tomorrow, would you have enough of a library to survive?


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## pheniox17 (Dec 12, 2013)

the problem with eBooks is emp, a lot of people do have a decent collection on their eBook but I prefer hard copy  

nothing beats the smell of a new book (strange I know)


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## PaulS (Mar 11, 2013)

I have hard copies, DVDs, and digital. The hard copies, if stored properly will last 50 - 75 years, The digital will only last until the media is no longer acceptable in format, and the DVDs will last longer than we will have the ability to read them. I have computer programs on cassette that I wrote in the early seventies - useless for the most part now.


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## Daddy O (Jan 20, 2014)

I have a good hardcopy library, but e-books make it much more affordable to obtain things like medical texts and glossy books like that. Right now I am experimenting with solar chargers for portable devices. This is the latest toy I got:
Power Bank 5.0 - 959307, Alternative Energy at Sportsman's Guide

I also got the power pack.

So a 6w cell will power a phone directly, better if you put it in airplane mode. The battery pack will charge some tablets, but not all. My asus will only charge from a wall outlet even though it is USB, but Ipads will take the trickle of a USB. My S3 phone works great with either, but the samsung tablet never really charged even though it recognized the power source (unlike the asus which completely ignores any power cable not plugged into the wall.)

We started on this solar kick a while back during snow camping trips where you get a lot of campfire time. Sometimes it is nice to have jams when you are as far back into snow country as your snowshoes will carry you.

I read about some special DVDs that had a gold substrate finish so they were able to last for twice as long as conventonal media, but the real weakness of optical discs is the player itself. If you leave a dvd drive for a couple of years, the drive belt will literally fal off with rot. So you would have discs that would be readable in 30 years, but nothing to play them on. Worse yet, if you ever had to install windows again it would only work for 30 days before shutting down due to the validation servers being nuked.


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## MrsInor (Apr 15, 2013)

I would rather have a book in my hands than look at a computer screen. The smell and feel of a book is so much more enjoyable. We have a lot of books. I buy the classics when I find them on sale. I purchase how to books on Inor's and my current learning project. I would say we have a pretty good library. However, there will always be room for just one more.


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## Smokin04 (Jan 29, 2014)

Tough call...but if bugged out, obviously the tablet (sheltered in a faraday cage) would be the wise choice. If at the permanent BOL, then the more hardcopies the better. Just my .02.


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## Deebo (Oct 27, 2012)

Many great reasons for and against, I was JUST TODAY at the second hand store looking at books. Excellent post, becouse yes, books may eventaully be obsolete, think of The Book Of ELI. 
So, like many of my fellow preppers, I will continue to buy hardbacks, and download and save PDF's and e-books.


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## shotlady (Aug 30, 2012)

I love books. its very important to store good knowledge. the hard copy way


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## Seneca (Nov 16, 2012)

The only problem with books is they take up a lot of space. That has been my experience YMMV. I split the difference, the must have books are hard bound and the everyday read for pleasure stuff goes on the kindle. For me it's the classics that are the hardest to decide where they should go.


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## KYPrepper (Jan 17, 2014)

I agree with both sides on this one. I know exactly what you guys mean about holding, feeling, even the smell of hard copy books, as I'm an avid reader. The weight would be a big issue as well as the material deteriorating like PaulS stated they'll get brittle fall apart, you would almost need to take the same precautions with books as you would with your food and water storage. Now a Kindle protected by a Faraday cage sounds like a great idea, with a solar powered charging system. I would probably do the same as mentioned here, keep my Kindle, as well as a flash drive with countless PDF files I've downloaded protected by an EMP, as well as a variety of hard copy books. Some I would think to include would be The Bible, Gray's Anatomy, a complete set of Encyclopedias, I would want paper copies of maps of the United States as well as world maps, personally I would want some classics: The compllete works of H. G. Wells, Robinson Curusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Dracula, Great Expectations, The Great Gatsby. Some obvious choices would be field manuals for medical, survival, trap making, hunting/fishing, both military as well as civilian versions. Medical Books are great but usually huge and heavy same with a entire set of encyclopedias haha. I would want to also include a thorough and full version of Webster's Dictionary. Just my 2 cents!!! Loved this thread, pretty thought provoking.


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## Notsoyoung (Dec 2, 2013)

I personally try to get both, but for long term (decades if not longer), I prefer the hard copies for reference. The e-books are allot cheaper and much more portable, but when thinking long term, the next generation for example, go with printed material. There are allot of things that I know how to do or can figure out, that perhaps my grandchildren will not be able to. Also, perhaps because I am older coot it is easier for me to use hardcopies as reference material.


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## survivalist77 (Mar 15, 2014)

How are you gonna tote all those heavy hardbound books?


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## Boss Dog (Feb 8, 2013)

I'm working on it. I prefer to hold pages in my hand.










You can prob tell I'm not very mobile. I still don't have a smart phone or even own my own laptop! I'm using my daughter's and I hate this thing but, my desktop is currently sleeping the big sleep. Been putting off getting another book shelf, I could just about fill it half way with more books that are packed away here & there!


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## Montana Rancher (Mar 4, 2013)

Daddy O said:


> There was a character in Lucifer's hammer who stashed books of knowledge in a safe place so that later he could parlay his way into a safe place. It made sense to keep all of the knowledge he did, in hard copy. Someday you may need to know how to make rubbing alcohol or refine chlorine. What if you need surgery? Is there a book that tells how to do it in case you don;t have a doctor? Can you identify medications if you found them?
> 
> I read another book the other day called Calizona where one of the characters was influenced by the guy from Lucifer's Hammer. It was kind of cool how he took off and created this vast knowledgebase. It made me start to rethink the tablet e-book equation. You can store thousands of books of every type on a tablet, and they take almost no power (I have a 6w solar cell and battery block to charge mine) So much is available out there digitally, music, web pages, books, text books, and more. We survivalists always think of guns and beans, but do we ever give thought to knowledge management? If the internet went down tomorrow, would you have enough of a library to survive?


I really am pissed you respond to an obvious troll, OMG 8 posts and you take this guy seriously?

Anyone with this much touted intelligence and 8 post is asking how to store water, not debating Lucifer's Hammer!


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## Notsoyoung (Dec 2, 2013)

Montana Rancher said:


> I really am pissed you respond to an obvious troll, OMG 8 posts and you take this guy seriously?
> 
> Anyone with this much touted intelligence and 8 post is asking how to store water, not debating Lucifer's Hammer!


Seems like a legitimate subject to me, just what is the problem with it? He is not "debating" Lucifer's Hammer, the question is about storing reference material.


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## pastornator (Apr 5, 2013)

I'm a confirmed book nut and my personal library runs above 3000 volumes on all sorts of themes, from classroom textbooks to resource manuals, to theology and philosophy.

I have an additional 2000+ volumes on my hard drives that are searchable by key word, etc. I find the electronic versions faster and more accessable (I carry over 200 with me daily on my smart phone), but agree that for some things that hardbound books will be the way to go, especially when pictures are part of the equation.

Concerning prepper or homesteading works, I've tried to read the genre (all the books published on the subject). I'm probably 2/3 of the way finished with that task and am now searching out more widely to find the remaining 1/3 that I've not yet processed. Most of the info is stored now in my head, which goes with me wherever I go, but details (like load data for reloading, specifics of canning, electrical formulas for solar, etc.) are things that one would need to look up to get correct. That, by reading, one can KNOW what might or has already been done is a plus, for ignorance is not bliss when it comes to being prepared. Knowing, for instance that one can make rudimentary black powder from things found on the farm or in nature is valuable.

I see, if we actually have a TEOTWAWKI scenario that every spare moment, or perhaps by those who cannot do other more phyiscal tasks, will be filled by those who are STUDYING the reference material to glean from it the things that one will need to survive and thrive, including the how-tos of rebuilding civilization. That task is as critical, in many ways, as is finding food and water on a daily basis! The individual who can share with the clan a tip, technique, or improvement that increases the chance of life wil be as valuable as the shooter eventually, for contra MOST of the fictional accounts I've read to date, we WILL be more interested in returning life to sanity than to drift off into oblivion as singles or pairs of fighters. We KNOW what was and we KNOW that we can have some, if not most of that back, and people WILL be doing what they can to restore power, etc., just as our forebearers excitedly adopted new inventions and capacities the moment they were made available! Only a fool continues digging with a pointed stick when he could have a steel plow!


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

Montana Rancher said:


> I really am pissed you respond to an obvious troll, OMG 8 posts and you take this guy seriously?
> 
> Anyone with this much touted intelligence and 8 post is asking how to store water, not debating Lucifer's Hammer!


Somebody obviously ate some fruit from the grumpy tree...:x


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## Inor (Mar 22, 2013)

Thanks for reminding me of Lucifer's Hammer. I have not read that in over 20 years. The scene where the surfer dude is riding the tsunami into L.A. is still one of my all-time favorite scenes from a book! I'll have to read that again.


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## survivalist77 (Mar 15, 2014)

Somebody's enamored with Lucifer's Hammer? Why?


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

survivalist77 said:


> How are you gonna tote all those heavy hardbound books?


You will tote them for me, while hooked up to a chain around your neck...your jaw cut out of your head and your arms dismembered. That's how.


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## MrsInor (Apr 15, 2013)

Looks like a lot of bacon is needed this morning.


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## Prepp(g)er (Feb 18, 2014)

pheniox17 said:


> the problem with eBooks is emp, a lot of people do have a decent collection on their eBook but I prefer hard copy
> 
> nothing beats the smell of a new book (strange I know)


i like that smell, too. but imo nothing beats the smell like that of a really, really old book!


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## MrsInor (Apr 15, 2013)

Bet books would sell better if they had distinctive smells. Cookbooks that smelled like bacon. Gun books that smelled like cordite. Farm books that smelled like ......

On second thought.


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