r/suggestmeabook • u/FullIn96 • 6h ago
Looking For Adult Survival Fiction
As a kid I was all about those survival books: Hatchet (really anything Gary Paulsen,) My Side of the Mountain, Julie of the Wolves, Island of the Blue Dolphins... you get the idea. It felt like this magical, robust genre.
I recently got a hankering to read something like that again, and while I have nothing against rereading kids books, I was hoping to find something more adult. I haven't been able to find anything that's really recapturing that feeling.
So, give me your best survival stories. I'm talking woods, islands, deserts, whatever you've got. I want the protagonist struggling to build a fire and trying to figure out which berries are edible.
Thanks for any help you can offer!
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u/mamacrocker 5h ago
Have you ever read The Valley of Horses by Jean Auel? It's the second book in a series, but IMO it's the best of the lot, and most of the story is a woman surviving on her own in a prehistoric landscape.
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u/wanderingale 5h ago
When I read your comment I thought wow I should listen to that audio book of The Clan of the Cave Bear, I went to put it on hold at the library.
One copy, 127 people ahead in line.
Its amazing how almost 50 after publication its still so popular.
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u/Weavingknitter 5h ago
The Martian by Andy Weir!
wow I wish that I could read that book for the first time again.
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u/Introverted_Extrovrt 4h ago
I’m still on backlog on my Libby app for Project Hail Mary, I loved The Martian so much
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u/GucciAviatrix 5h ago
The Dog Stars (or any Peter Heller books) might scratch the itch, though they’re more post apocalyptic kinds of stories than strictly wilderness survival.
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u/TravelingChick 5h ago
The River isn't post-apocalyptic.
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u/Mindless-Stuff2771k 5h ago
The River's sequal "The Guide" definitely is.
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u/CaptainLaCroix 5h ago
It's more or less just set in a fictionalized version of the COVID pandemic. Nothing crazy. No outrageous tech. The Painter is 100% contemporary. So is Celine. Burn is definitely dystopian though.
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u/TravelingChick 5h ago
Isn't it more of a thriller?
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u/Mindless-Stuff2771k 5h ago edited 5h ago
It's both. It's a "thriller" in a near-apocalyptic setting. It really creepy because of how well done the setting is. It makes you understand that we could be living through the apocalyse right now and not know it. If you still have COVID lock down anxiety, dont read it.
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u/lostlookingforamap 5h ago
Devolution by max brooks
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u/ms_merry 2h ago
His writing is so good. Totally not something I’d ordinarily read, but I listened to WWZ, loved it and thought, why not. It’s great and super entertaining. Any audiobook fans here — recommended!
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u/Reformalism 5h ago
Well this doesn’t exactly meet your criteria but One Man’s Wilderness by Sam Keith from Dick Proenneke’s journals is pretty awesome. Guy retires to build a cabin in the Alaskan bush and ends up living up there for 30 years. As a fellow childhood Paulsenite it’s one of my favorites. Also some great films based on it that are freely available.
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u/chickenlightningpie 6h ago
Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson. You get your fire-building right there in the first chapter!
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u/Mother-Pattern-2609 5h ago
This is a wonderful book, with a truly plausible adolescent protagonist. They're pretty rare.
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u/GucciAviatrix 5h ago
I haven’t read Shaman but a lot of KSR’s writing is speculative fiction centered around humans surviving in a hostile environment, whether that’s Mars or the future earth becoming more hostile to humans due to climate change.
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u/tally-strobe 5h ago
You might appreciate Gary Paulsen’s biography — Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood: A True Story of Growing Up in the Wild (2021)
Paulsen wrote about the events that shaped his life and developed his survival instinct and the values that ensured his survival.
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u/Revolutionary-Pea576 5h ago
Endurance, story of Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica
Anything about the USS Indianapolis
We Die Alone, book about a Norwegian ex-pat inserted back into Norway as an allied agent during the nazi occupation in WWII, epic story of escape, pursuit, and survival in the arctic
Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea
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u/Caleb_Trask19 5h ago edited 2h ago
Vaster Wilds, a young woman escapes the Roanoke Colony on the verge of collapse and tries to make her way North to the French fur trappers she’s heard about.
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u/morty77 5h ago
Isola by Allegra Goodman. Fantastic novel.based on the true story of a French noblewoman in the 15th century who was abandoned with her nurse maid and lover on an island in Canada. While both her maid and lover died, she survived for 2 whole years fighting polar bears until she was resuced by basque fisherman. She was celebrated ib France and her story added to the decameron. An excellent read!
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u/wanderingale 5h ago
Two Old Women by Wallis
Its a tale of two elderly women in the artic whose tribe is facing a harsh winter with little food so the women are left to die.
The women have to decide weather to accept their fate and wait to die or to struggle on.
Really a very good book.
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u/velaurciraptorr 5h ago
Moon of the Turning Leaves, and to a lesser extent the book it is sequel to, Moon of the Crusted Snow, by Waubgeshig Rice
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u/Armadillo_Whole 4h ago
Tilt by Emma Pattee.
Very pregnant woman stranded in Portland OR after an earthquake. Made me very stressed, but must admit that it was very good.
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u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson 5h ago
There's a whole genre of 'Lost at Sea' stories. The Raft, Survive the Savage Sea and Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost At Sea come to mind, though I'm sure there's more. Of course there is the OG, Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson.
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u/KarlosKrinklebine 5h ago
Also Endurance by Alfred Lansing, about Shackleton's shipwreck in Antarctica. Non-fiction, but still had me on the edge of my seat.
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u/LouQuacious 5h ago
Island of the Lost by Joan Druett
Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales
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u/NashCop 5h ago
Deep Survival is an all time favorite of mine.
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u/LouQuacious 5h ago
such an excellent book I actually took notes on how to survive while reading it
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u/Astrazigniferi 4h ago
Island of the Lost was going to be my suggestion! Technically non-fiction but it reads like a thriller and is exactly what OP is looking for.
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u/mostlycatsandquilts 5h ago
“Educated” is not a survival story on purpose, yet turns out to be one in many ways that are unexpected, a memoir by Tara Westover
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u/Sunlit_Syposium 5h ago
Michael Crichton:
Jurassic Park
Micro
Sphere
Timeline
Andy Weir:
The Martian
Hail Mary
This is my favorite genre. I reread those same kids books every few years as well. I’m always on the look out for this specific formula: one or more academic/theoretical experts in a field thrust into an extreme real world survival scenario in which they must survive the elements by putting academic knowledge into real world practice.
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u/WanderingWonderBread 3h ago
- Into the Wild - Krakauer
- Walking the Amazon - Stafford
- Jungle - Ghinsberg
- Walking the Nile- Wood
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u/Dhugaill 5h ago
Small Game by Blair Braverman
A gripping debut novel about a survival reality show gone wrong that leaves a group of strangers stranded in the northern wilds
Four strangers and six weeks: this is all that separates Mara from one life-changing payday. She was surprised when reality TV producers came knocking at Primal Instinct—the survival school where she teaches rich clients not to die during a night outdoors—and even more shocked to be cast in their new show, Civilization. Now she just has to live off the land with her fellow survivors for long enough to get the prize money.
Whisked by helicopter to an undisclosed location, Mara meets her teammates: The grizzled outdoorsman. The Eagle Scout. The white-collar professional. And Ashley, the beautiful but inexperienced one who just wants to be famous. Mara’s unusual, rugged childhood has prepared her for the discomforts and hard work ahead. But trusting her fellow survivors? Not part of Mara’s skill set.
When the cast wakes one morning to find something has gone horribly wrong, fear ripples through the group. Are the producers giving them an extra challenge? Or are they wrapped up in something more dangerous? Soon Mara and the others face terrifying decisions as “survival” becomes more than a game.
Stranded by Sarah Goodwin
You’ll want to stay. Until you can’t leave....
A group of strangers arrive on a beautiful but remote island, ready for the challenge of a lifetime: to live there for one year, without contact with the outside world.
But 12 months later, on the day when the boat is due to return for them, no one arrives.
Eight people stepped foot on the island. How many will make it off alive?
A totally addictive psychological thriller with twists and turns you just won’t see coming. Fans of The Hunting Party, The Castaways and The Sanatorium will be totally gripped from the very first moment until the final, breath-taking conclusion.
The Martian by Andy Weir
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
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u/sundaemourning 5h ago
aww, you beat me to Small Game! that came to mind immediately when i saw the request.
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u/Few-Resident6319 5h ago
If you want to get completely sucked into 12 book series, read the Going Home series by A. American. It’s a post-EMP/apocalyptic type series but it’s great.
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u/ResolveRemarkable 5h ago
One Second After by William Fortschen. It’s a post-EMT scenario, as with one of the others that has already been mentioned. It seems to be very carefully thought out.
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u/mind_the_umlaut 5h ago
Consider the Anna Pigeon mysteries by Nevada Barr. The main character is a National Park Ranger who works in the most obscure and remote parks.
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u/SoMuchFactory 4h ago
Blair Braverman! Small Game (fiction) and Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube (non-fiction)
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u/Left_Jellyfish_6772 3h ago
I looove this genre. Ever since I read Z for Zachariah in grade six.
Tomorrow when the War Began - John Marsden (series set in an Australian small town right as we get invaded, present day, marketed as YA fiction but a great book anyway)
Connie Willis - Doomsday Book (time travel, the black plague, last man standing, great stuff)
Michael Crichton - The Andromeda Strain (alien bacteria kills almost everyone)
One Second After - William R. Forstchen (EMP knocks out US modern technology, chaos ensues)
There's more but that's all I can think of for now. Haven't included ones I didn't like, like The Stand or The Road
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u/TheRimeOfMom 3h ago
What is the What by Dave Eggers.
What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children —the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom.
Truly epic survival story.
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u/wibjke 3h ago
Unbroken is a true story that is all about survival.
But if you want the protagonist to be struggling the whole time trying to figure out how to survive in a fast paced race against the clock with extremely limited resources available because he’s trapped inside a whale? Check out Whalefall. Bonus the movie drops on Friday.
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u/StillFireWeather791 2h ago
It's great nonfiction and I recommend Deep Survival by Lawrence Gonzales. Each chapter covers real life survival. Gonzales concludes survival is in our attitudes and hearts. Brilliant!
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u/DreamOtherwiseB4 2h ago
A friend wrote 3 fiction books about surviving in Alaska!
Look up Marali Seargant Smith’s books: Crossing Shelikof, Where Eagles Gather, and Buried Gold
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u/SansOchre 2h ago
It's much older than most of what is being suggested, but The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne is a shipwreck/survival/rebuild society story that might scratch your itch.
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u/RodJaneandFreddy5 1h ago
One Second After by William R Forstchen.
Set in an American town after an EMP attack that knocks out everything electrical. I found this book very thought provoking and very scary.
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u/PineappleSituation 19m ago
Sunrise by Tea Obreht is about a woman who survives a plane crash in the wilderness and has to figure out where she is and how to survive.
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u/WasAHamster 5h ago
If you are down with narrative non-fiction, The Indifferent Stars Above is about the Donner Party.