Cody Lundin's book 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive focuses entirely on the essential knowledge you need to prevent an emergency wilderness situation, or to get safely out of one if something goes wrong.  Most other survival texts stray into hunting, trapping, and foraging methods for long-term survival living, but 98.6 Degrees gets in your face with the essentials.  Most survival situations last only about 72 hours, Lundin points out, before rescuers find you either alive or dead. 

98.6 Degrees is written and illustrated in an in-your-face style with racy cartoons and some offensive language, which may be a turn-off to more conservative readers, but Cody is out to get your attention in whatever way he can to hammer in the essentials of survival.  Most will find this a fun and enlightening read.

Like Melvin Beattie, Jim Riggs was one of a small handful of people practicing primitive skills in the United States twenty-five years ago.  Jim learned to art of braintanning from old-timers Slim Schaefer and Sonny Sherman, and went on to produce Blue Mountain Buckskin as the classic book on dry-scrape tanning.  First printed in 1979, Blue Mountain Buckskin remains the most comprehensive text available today on dry-scrape braintan.  Jim's book includes an in-depth section on manufacturing buckskin clothing, plus good braintan humor and fun illustrations.  A good book for the beginner.