Book Review

   Well, we have another book review today… You can see from the title that it’s sticking with the whole frugal living theme that I consistently preach here. It’s really not as much about just being frugal so much as it is just being conscience of were our money is going. I have always worked hard and had money in my pocket, always will if I have anything to say about it. It’s easy to miss those vicious little drags on our prosperity if we aren’t keeping track. I’ve found time and again that the it’s the little things that add up to the BIG things quickly.

   With this in mind, I bring you the “Living Well on Practically Nothing” guide. This book is from the nether regions of my book shelf. It was copyright in 1992 and published by an old favorite, Paladin Press. Knowing that this too is an older book, you can see that my interest in leading a sustainable life has been surging through my veins for many years.

   The author, Edward H. Romney, had been working in the corporate world for many years prior to making this move to volunteer simplicity. He is famous for quotes about poverty being a state of being rather than an economic condition. He spends an entire chapter explaining how to reduce your income without losing your self respect. It’s interesting the way he describes how our peers view of us is often tied to our economic state. Sad, but I think pretty true. I would even have to say that I ‘m guilty of drawing conclusions based off of how things look at the surface, far to often…

   As I re-read these books to find those that are worth sharing with all of you, I’m reminded of how they have each impacted my life, or not… Some I don’t even remember the content in the book and others like this one come right back as if I had read it only months ago.

  I particularly liked the chapter on repairing items rather than replacing them. The author writes about the many examples from his own life. Things that he learned from his grandparents and many things that he has discovered on his own as he has led a life of volunteer simplicity.

  I think that this book is very good at getting the old wheels turning on ways that we could all cut back and or even do without. Written from the man that is actually doing this stuff to this day. I however, won’t go to the lengths he has and will continue my luxuries for as long as possible. I don’t personally like to sit in a cold room and just add additional layers of clothing to stay warm… It’s not that I don’t agree with him theoretically, I just would make these type of cuts as a last resort rather than to shave another 10 bucks off the electric bill.

   This book is a real toolbox of information that will spin off new perspectives for each of your own specific situations. What will work for one of us won’t even apply to someone else but when we see what others are willing to take on, I whole heartedly believe it empowers us to go further in our own pursuits… The following is a quote from the conclusion of this book that spoke to me –

“People are not just reactive creatures responding to stimuli. They also create and control their environment. There is poverty, but the real poverty, as Martin Flavin points out, is poverty of soul. There is a message in this book beyond hardware and technique, and that message is for people to reach out and take hold and rise up and build and grow and create for themselves a better life. By doing so, it encourages others to do likewise, and that builds a better world.”

   Most of the actual information in the book is still viable even though it was written in the 90’s. There are things surrounding personal computers and the like that just don’t apply anymore but if you’re willing to over look these details, you’ll still enjoy reading about the efforts that the author and his family have made to live cheaply.

   In this particular economic time of history that we find ourselves living in now, it seemed that this book might be timely for many of us. I think that we should all be exercising our minds on ways to streamline our lifestyles and make ourselves as self sufficient and reliant as possible!

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   As we have been doing with all the recent book reviews – I’ll be giving my copy of this book to a “Prepper” Nation email subscriber. I haven’t been harping about making sure to subscribe, most everyone seems to be finding the sign up area on there own… I would like to ask you all to continue sharing the site withanyone you might know that likes the kind of things we discuss here… I appreciate the word of mouth support!

For this book giveaway, I’ll take the 18th email requesting the copy! Have a great day and I’ll see you all again tomorrow!

Prepper

 

The Survival Retreat by Ragnar Benson

 

 

   Well, today I have another book review for you! I want to introduce an author that we’ll see a lot of around here, at least in the book review section…

 

   This writer caught my attention very early on in my discovery of the “Survivalist Movement”. For me it was in the early part of the 1990’s but this movement had been around for decades before it pulled me in. With literally dozens of interesting works to his credit it would take me quite some time to find and read them all. This author is Ragnar Benson or “Uncle Ragnar” as I started referring to him; his books are some of my all time favorites. As you’ll all get to see, not all of his books are on topics that I advocate the average reader try at home, at least not while the world is still holding itself together…

 

   To a young man that had little money, his books lead to many a daydream of the things I would do when the money was available. I really enjoy the writing style he uses and even if the subject is not something, you think you might be interested in doing yourself, the personal anecdotes he uses keep everything interesting.

 

   Alright, alright, The book for today is “The Survival Retreat – A Total Plan For Retreat Defense”. The copyright on this book says it was written in 1983, I had it in my mind that it wasn’t that old but what have I been saying about time flying lately?

 

   This book is a bit out of date with the threats that Ragnar describes specifically. When he wrote the book, the United States was in the middle of the Cold War. We may not need to be as concerned about a Nuclear Holocaust today as our earlier brethren were in the 80’s. However, this book is just as applicable today as it was the day he wrote it. At just over 100 pages, it isn’t a large book but the impact it had on me was profound in how I looked at what I would want for my own retreat in the future.

 

 

Ragnar writes:

 

“A retreat is a place you go to live, not die. Setting up a retreat for the most part is, practicing the art of the possible. It’s a matter of wisely and shrewdly identifying what you have available and turning it into something usable… Fight if you must, but try your utmost to orchestrate events so that confrontation is absolutely the remedy of last resort.”

 

 

   This book takes the reader through multiple thought exercises. There is far more to consider when making the decisions about how and where to locate this important asset. Readers are confronted with the hard questions of what will you do if? I’ll give you an example from the book, this is one that even though I read this for the first time 16-17 years ago, stuck with me and I can honestly say has never been adequately answered.

 

   “Let us suppose there is a home for the retarded about a mile from your retreat. At the time of the collapse the workers, hearing you have a shelter, come walking up with thirty wards in tow. Do you put a couple bursts of gunfire into the group and send the survivors scurrying on their way?

 

   If your answer is yes, how do you sleep at night or look at yourself in the mirror afterward? If your answer is no, how do you accommodate the added number of dependant souls in your retreat? How do you feed them? What about sanitation?”

 

   Obviously, the enemy here isn’t the blood thirsty Mutant Zombie Bikers, most of us have imagined! Yet this issue would nonetheless leave us and ours in a precarious survival situation. It’s this type of creative thinking exercise that is common to the writing of Rangnar Benson.

 

   The book is full of ideas that will help the reader make critical decisions in how to think through each angle of retreat layout. The options are almost endless and it is easy to get “analysis paralysis” and ignore these questions until after you are financially committed to a project. The time to make evaluations is before the money is spent and the land laid out in such a way as to not allow you everything you would like to have.

 

   If you’re like me you have all the plans made and know well in advance what will need to be done. You already have the dimensions for the outhouse and root cellar, maybe in your head or possibly in a 3 ring binder labeled “Retreat” or “Farm”…

 

  I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn what makes a good retreat. Find out how to stock and equip that retreat and cope with the realities of retreating when it really counts. This is an author that I’m sure you will all read with as much enthusiasm as I did and still do, whenever I have the chance!

 

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   I promised that with each BOOK REVIEW, I would give the “Prepper” Nation subscribers a shot to win my copy of the book free… This book will be no exception; I will ship the book to the 25th subscriber that emails me with their interest in having the book. Good Luck!

 

Email me at – prepper@preppernation.com

   

Prepper

 

 

   Today I’m bringing you book review #4. This is a book that a lot of you have probably heard of but it seems that many haven’t found the time to read it yet? I’m personally very busy these days and have to weigh the priorities of my time before I can sit down and read a new book as well, so I do understand. Even though this book is nearly 350 pages, it won’t take you long to read – you won’t put it down! It’s that good! I would say that this book is destined to become a classic, at least among people of our caliber. Preppers and just plain readers will all enjoy this one!

  As I mentioned yesterday, I will be giving this book away today. The way it will work is when I publish this post it will be early Thursday morning and so I want you to email me ASAP if you are interested in receiving it. I will take the 15th email that I receive from a subscriber interested in the book. I did want those of you that actually sleep through the night to have a chance at it too. I will get back to the winner Thursday afternoon via email to confirm their win and ask them to email me the shipping address at that time! Good luck!

Send your emails to - prepper@preppernation.com

  Where do I begin, this book is kind of an anomaly in that its main stream but at the same time so interesting to folks like us. I guess that it really isn’t a piece of Doomer fiction and so the sheeple wouldn’t get to up in arms over it that the publisher allowed it to get through.

  This would be the ideal book to have your unenlightened spouse or even mother-in-law read. It is written in a very true to life way that doesn’t deal much in fringe and paranoia. WAIT, don’t let that last statement stop you, its definitelyworth the read. There is still the elements of DOOM to keep the most hard core of our group satisfied. It is just done in a refreshingly realistic way. I’ll try to fill you in on a bit of the story line but refuse to be a spoiler and I know in the end you’ll appreciate that!

  For what its worth, the books foreword was done by Newt Gingrich. This means very little to me but does show the degree of mainstream this book is in. If your a Newt fan, I guess that this would be a plus. I’m not what you would call a fan but I can think of a pretty extensive list of political types I like less too!

“Though this  book is a work of fiction, it is also a work of fact, perhaps a “future history,” that should be thought provoking and, yes, even terrifying for all of us. I know this from personal study, across decades, of the very real threat to American security that is posed by this particular weapon that Bill Forstchen writes about in One Second After.”     ~Newt Gingrich

   The book takes place in modern day North Carolina. The lives of the main characters are as ordinary as any you might expect to find. The author does such a good job of character development, at least I thought so, you really start to care about these people and feel their pain by the time you reach the books conclusion!

   It takes just a short time to get the ride underway and then your off – It all starts the way you might think it would  at your own house. The power goes out on a nice sunny afternoon. None of us would make much stink about this, a reasonable explanation would be forthcoming and we could use this as an excuse to barbecueor divert from our regular activities. It’s in this exact type of non-descript , easy going way that I can envision a  real SHTF being kicked off with.

   These charactersare so believable that it is easy to be both distracted by their simplicity but also alarmed at the same time as you realize these are average Americans and this is how they would act in real life. From start to finish it’s the everyday issues that this small town deals with, that will cause each one of you to sit back and assess what your families capabilities are. We also are a group of, for the most part average Americans. Even if you don’t want to be lumped in with the “Joe six packs”, you have to admit most of us live on a street with a lot of them surrounding us.

   I read this book and realized that if I were faced with the same disaster that they faced in the story, I may not have my ducks in that good of a row either. I have made many of my plans around the idea that in the eleventh hour I will be hitting the road to beat feet to my BOL. Actually, I keep a pretty good watch and will try to do the beating of the feet closer to 9:30 rather than waiting all the way to the “eleventh hour” but you know what I mean!

   In my own delusions of grandeur, think that I will probably be able to pull off that last minute get out of dodge. Not if this scenario were to come to pass! They found themselves in a new dark-age, post (EMP) or electromagnetic pulse. They slowly come to the realization that for the foreseeable future they will have no electricity, automobiles and in short order food and water. Put yourself in this situation, what are YOU prepared for? If it seems that I am trying to poke holes in all your well meaning plans – I AM! Although, not just your plans but my own as well. This is a team effort and I’m finding daily that the more I get done the more I find still left undone? I’m willing to bet that this is or would be the case at your house as well, if you are honest about it.

   I am trying to restrain myself from blurting out all the twists in this story but it just wouldn’t be fair and I want each one of you to read this book. It is so important that we live in the reality n0t in the fantasy that is easy to slip into. We have the firepower to accomplish anything that needs doing, I probably have a similar safe as many of you and I was left really wondering what I would do in these folks situation. I know that I’ve been reinvigorated to take the food storage to a new level and would like to hear your thoughts after you finish this book!

   I couldn’t recommend any book higher than I do this one! Don’t take Newt Gingrich’s word on it, take mine – BUY THIS BOOK! This book will be one of the stories that us  doomers will refer to over the coming years as having had an influence on how we prep, read it now and stay up with the rest of the cool kids! You know you want to read it – This is my attempt at peer-pressure!

See you tomorrow!

Prepper