Recently I've seen people talking about various devices full of offline-accessible info that are marketed to people who are worrying about the end of the world. These things like the "Prepper Disk" have been around a long time, but usually you only hear about them in fairly fringe forums or as ads on sites serving people who want to stockpile guns and canned beans for their end of the world bunker fantasies. But lately, they're getting a bit more attention, likely because many people in the US are finding that "life as we know it," with all the comforts and taken-for-granteds that entails might be a bit more tenuously held together than many of us previously assumed.

Some folks have written about how the expensive things like the Prepper Disk are fairly basic hardware anyone can buy themselves, and stocked with info that is available entirely for free. For example, Michael Belcher has a detailed write-up of what hardware you'd want if you wanted to make your own.

Personally though, I want my emergency information stockpile to be battery-free and tactile. In most of the long-term societal breakdowns I can imagine, I'll be staying right here where I live, not relocating to a tent in the woods or something. (I think I'm better off staying where other people are, where we can pool resources and work to solve problems collectively anyways, not to mention that my house is already a pretty great shelter, more equipped to weather a literal storm than any tent I could buy or erect on the spot!)

But I'm also a big believer in "prepping for Tuesday, not for doomsday" - preparedness for me is about being ready to handle the small disasters and emergency situations of everyday life, not just a big collapse or apocalyptic event. The power might go out for a few hours during a storm, or in the US and Canada, a severe weather event might lead to a few days or even a week of infrastructure disruption including electrical & communication networks before coming back online.

So, with that in mind, there are some kinds of info I like to have available in some physical form that I can access at home whenever I want. Here are a few things in my collection that I've found valuable.

# Individual Print Outs

You can start real small with this, without needing to purchase anything. Do you have a few jugs of water stored at your home? Great! Do you remember offhand how much clear, unscented bleach to use to treat potentially unsafe water and make it safe for drinking? Me neither! So I printed out the water page from Ready.gov, a US government resource on being prepared for everyday disasters & emergency situations, and I keep that printout near my water jugs (but not on the floor where it might get splashed/leaked on...)

It's on my to-do list to print out a list of phone numbers & home addresses of my close family members & friends - maybe I'll do that today!

Physical maps of the area you live in are great to have on hand, too. Check with your state DMV; some (like Nebraska!) will send you a free paper map of the state by request. When we moved to Ottawa, I bought a paper map of the province and one of the city to keep in our car's glovebox, since of course we are more unfamiliar with the roads here, but may still like to get home some day if our phones die while we're adventuring on the far side of town! If you bike, see if a bike-specific map of your city is available - some places have an online version only that you can print yourself, or maybe you'll be lucky and a local cycling organization or even your local government (what an idea) might have one already printed.

For cooking, we have a fridge magnet that we got for free from probably a state fair booth long ago or something, with the safe cooking temps for all kinds of meats on it. It's great to be able to glance up and know what temperature the chicken I'm working on at the stove needs to be, without picking up my phone to do an internet search. (And at this point, possibly getting an AI generated, possibly incorrect answer up top anyways.)

# Books

There are also some books in our collection that I appreciate having on hand. Thrift stores and used book markets are a great place to look for these and potentially find them really cheap.

I love physical cookbooks so much; the experience of cooking with one is just so much better for me than an online recipe. I don't mind the author's paragraphs up top about their experiences developing the recipe or making it for their family, which is usually what you hear people complain about with blogs. In fact, I like reading those even in cookbook form! And I appreciate and value the work of recipe developers and sharers, and the self-expression that comes with it. But I abhor internet ads and attention-stealing tactics, particularly those videos that autoplay and follow me down the page and have a tiny little X I'm probably going to miss when I try to click it to dismiss the video window. You know what I've never ever seen in a cookbook? An auto-play video ad. Of course you should get cookbooks for whatever kinds of things you like to cook, but an overall reference like the classic Joy of Cooking is great too so you never have to internet search "boil mashed potatoes time" again unless you really want to. Pro tip: check out cookbooks from your local library first and try a few recipes out before purchasing, to make sure the cookbook will be one you're happy to turn to again and again.

As a general intro to disaster preparedness, I like Practical Doomsday: A User's Guide to the End of the World by Michal Zalewski. Like it says right on the front, it's very practical! And not alarmist, which is a risk with anything preparedness-adjacent. It covers topics like assessing the risks you might face, and how to think through mitigating those risks, as well as a basic overview of the big categories like food, water, etc. (My favorite example is the part that encourages the reader to stop taking dumb risks as a practical way to avoid injury: don't walk under ladders! don't do stuff with ladders that seems unwise! do not stand on rolly chairs!)

# Health

For a general health reference, we found a used copy of The Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, Fifth Edition. It is truly a tome, at nearly 1400 pages, but I've already found it helpful to look up a few things that I'd otherwise have searched online and ended up on the Mayo Clinic's website to read about. You can look up info on particular conditions affecting different body systems, but it also has some great diagrams and overview health/body system info for those of us who don't remember much from (or never took) high school anatomy class.

For health concerns related to menstruation, I highly recommend Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. I learned a lot from finally reading it at my friend Diane's recommendation (she did an education session based on the book at Do It Ourselves Fest in 2022!), and paired with the book Queer Conception, I found it really useful when trying to get pregnant. But if you want to avoid pregnancy, the information in the book is invaluable for that, too. And there's no app required; the method in the book relies on paper charting of signs of fertility and heuristics you can figure out yourself based on the charted information.

# Home Stuff

How Your House Works by Charlie Wing is my go-to gift for new homeowners; it's got great diagrams and troubleshooting steps for all the components of a typical house, and helps you know just enough to have a slightly more informed conversation with a professional who specializes in that system (like a plumber or electrician) or know when to call one.

Thrift stores are a great source of home repair type manuals and sewing books; Readers Digest used to publish amazing comprehensive and photo/diagram-filled books like the Complete Guide to Sewing and The New Fix-It-Yourself Manual. I found a 1996 Canadian edition of the Fix-It-Yourself Manual at a thrift store recently for $2.50 CAD, and am absolutely delighted by it. Yeah, it has instructions on repairing a fax machine that I probably will never need, but the info on stoves, dishwashers, windows, doors, and lots of random small appliances seems like it would still be just as useful today as it was back then.

See my post on visiting a sewing thrift store for pictures of the Complete Guide to Sewing.

For renters, I loved Safe and Sound: A Renter Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust, the Trans Handy Ma'am. I got it when I already had a mortgage, and still found it useful. I appreciate the mini pep talks throughout that it's okay if you didn't get taught this stuff growing up, and it's okay if you don't have full control over your living space because you rent - there are still things you can do on your own to deal with minor problems and make your daily life at home go more smoothly.

# Transportation

I have a book on auto repair and one on bicycle maintenance. I should probably spend more time with them before I can recommend either here - the skills still intimidate me a bit more than I'd like, anything car-related especially! I'm trying to work my way up though, and build skills and knowledge over time when I'm not stressed about it.

# The Early Parenting Trifecta

If you are a parent of a little kid or soon-to-be parent of an infant, there are three books that I think should 100% be on your shelf, and also that you should actually read, but then keep as a reference. They are:

1. Heading Home With Your Newborn by Laura A. Jana
2. Caring for your baby and young child, Birth to Age 5 by the American Acadmey of Pediatrics
3. Precious Little Sleep by Alexis Dubief

There are lots of other parenting books out there, including great ones for the more "soft skills" side of parenting- Good Inside and the How to Talk So Kids (and/or: Little Kids) Will Listen being my two favorites of this genre. But these three I consider the basics that I'd recommend to pretty much anyone. 1 & 2 are both published by the American Academy of Pediatrics and have some overlapping info, but Heading Home with your Newborn goes into more specifics on newborn care specifically, and is a great read to prepare for "what the heck do I do with this baby they just let me take home from the hospital." Caring for your baby and young child is much thicker, and has a section for each year or developmental stage, as well as a guide to common ailments and first aid needs you might encounter for a little kid. I love the summaries of what's developmentally appropriate at each stage, as well as evidence-based guidance on how to handle the specific challenges of each age.

Precious Little Sleep is the holy book of infant sleep; my partner and I both read it and then referred to it frequently to troubleshoot or strategize sleep issues with our first kid, and are doing so again now that we've got a second. It gives an overview of what's normal for infant sleep and what to expect, and also a menu of options for how you can set your family up for success (aka more sleep) as time goes on, based on your baby's disposition and your own openness to various kinds of interventions.

# Other Stuff

If there's some other life skill that you practice or want to practice, and you might want to do it or know stuff about it even when the power's down or the internet's out for a while, consider getting some physical books! Support your local bookstore or buy used; sample from the library first to find what has the info you need in the format that works best for you.

You can find reference or how-to manuals on all kinds of different hobbies/skills: canning and food preservation, gardening, foraging for food found around you (whether that means edible native plants or more "suburban foraging" for what might be growing in an empty lot or landscape garden near you; look for reputable publishers & authors and be careful not to trust anything AI generated online or in print), etc. I was gifted The Mini Crochet Answer Book, and it's awesome to be able to flip through a little book to remember how many yarn overs go into the HDC stitch rather than getting bombarded with ads from the first result on any given internet search for the same info.

Remember that all these books will be most useful in an emergency if you are used to using them in your everyday life. If there are skills you'd like to have for an emergency or disaster scenario, it's much better to start learning them now, when you're not stressed about it and don't need to rely on those skills entirely.