Before you set out in the wild, pick up these readers, suggested in our March Colorado Survival Guide.

The SAS Survival Handbook, by John Wiseman, a former member of the elite British Special Air Service (SAS), offers an encyclopedic guide to survival situations–everything from building animal traps, to cooking methods, to backcountry first aid.

101 Survival Tips, by the Department of the U.S. Army, is a perfect coffee-table survival book, with simple, clear advice on how to build a below-ground water still, use the stars to navigate, and escape quicksand.

Outdoor Survival Skills, by Larry Dean Olsen, the preferred handbook of the prestigious Boulder Outdoor Survival School, specializes in primitive survival methods like building friction fires and finding edible wild plants.