The Disaster Diaries: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse , Sam Sheridan

The most paranoid man alive? or the most prepared?
This entertaining and disturbing book is part confession, part how-to, part amusing narrative of some extraordinary exploits! Sam Sheridan, a new father worrying about TEOTWAWKI - or, as most people call it, The End Of The World As We Know It - decides to get himself ready, by taking all the prepping courses he can.
From stunt driving to martial arts, to wilderness survival camp, Sheridan immerses himself in the nitty gritty of what it might take to be the guy who makes it to the end of the movie.
This was a super fun read, but also, if you're serious about getting a little more ready for whatever may come, Sheridan draws a pretty good path to acquiring the skills to survive in a world with zombies/EMPs/feral Mad Max-style biker gangs/breakdown of society, etc.
This will make a great gift to some of my more twitchy friends. ;)

It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It: Misadventures of a Suburban Hunter-Gatherer , Bill Heavey

This was a very well written and well done book about how to see the food in front of our eyes, and how to go about eating it!
Bill Heavey, a sportswriter, takes on learning to forage, hunt, and fish, and in the process, learns and shares a ton of great information about the history of American food, the industrialization of the food industry, and how food and society can be intrinsically linked, as in the sections about the Gwich'in and the Cajuns.
More than an entertaining read, this surprisingly powerful books has me looking for local edibles in my own area, and thinking much more about what it means to eat locally.