Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills: Naked into the Wilderness by John McPherson and Camping and Wilderness Survival by Paul Tawrell both come recommended. I found a book that combines survival with craft, making it useful both in the wild and the marketplace: Native American Crafts and Skills: a Fully Illustrated Guide to Wilderness Living and Survival by David Montgomery. The SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea by John Wiseman is inexpensive and very informative (I have this book myself). The Hopi Survival Kit by Thomas Mails is a book that you might find useful, it is a philosophical book of survival at this time of European colonialism. In cases of survival I have found an American tool to be indispensable: the_Leatherman_Tool. This tool has multiple uses for any situation and is as useful in the wild as in urban areas. Some of these books can be found in Google_Books, which means you can read them online and not pay for the book and shipping.
In urban and rural situations where there is no work AND no food I suggest building a box and writing FREE FOOD, CLOTHING AND MEDICINE on it and asking local businesses and landowners to contribute locally (you probably aren't the only person in this situation). Donors can contribute food, clothing and herbal medicine (NOT prescription medicine) for general benefit. You might also ask how you and others can help these local businesses and landowners in a work exchange for this food, clothing and medicine.
You will also note that this website has plans and information that can be used to manufacture such things as solar water pumps, wind generators, recumbent bicycles and knowledge of herbs. These manufactured and tradeable items can put cash in your pocket if you take the time to do some light manufacturing and farming yourself, using tools or land of a family member or friend ... and you will be supplying sustainable resources that are of high value to your clients!
A black plastic tarp is cheap and has many uses. It can be used as shelter in bad weather; a hot water bottle and shower (when folded to hold water) when put in the sun; clothing; a solar still; a water catch; even a sail for a small sailing vessel. If you fold the tarp and put hot sand or dirt from the campfire in the fold, a tarp acts as a sleeping bag. A white tarp can be used to keep your body or water cool. Black absorbs light and heat, white deflects it. If you wrap a cloth around a container of water (like a plastic tarp folded to hold water) and wet the cloth you create a canteen effect as water wicks away.
For simple survival, water can be obtained by tying a plastic bag over a plant limb; its respiration will produce water. A 'solar still' can be made by making a small ditch in the ground with a perimeter as wide as a plastic bag; a cup is put in the center of the ditch and the bag covers the whole ditch with dirt making an airtight seal around the perimeter. A pebble is placed in the center of the bag. Humidity from the ground rises from the ditch to the surface of the bag and drops back into the cup. See Camping and Wilderness Survival for more details and this website: Desert_Survival:Collect_Water_in_a_Solar_Still .
Alfalfa sprouts can be used as survival food for short periods (weeks) and the seed can also be used as ground cover for goat feed (some strains of alfalfa can serve both as survival food and for farming). Alfalfa is a legume (a nitrifying plant) that is a good cover crop to prepare for other crops in the future in that place. Alfalfa is also a source of water purification (the water it absorbs is cleaned of dirt by the plant... as long as the water is not poisoned, by pesticides for example) and can be carried on the body in a plastic bread bag. I have been told that large quantities of uncooked alfalfa can cause cancer; only use uncooked alfalfa in survival situations (unless you know something different). Mung beans, soy beans, corn and dried squash also make great travel and survival food. Sunflower seeds are said to be survival food as well (and easy to travel with) in combination with foods rich in vitamin C.
I will be adding to this link for survival and low tech, check in now and then:
I found a few links that are helpful for survival: FishLink, Birdnet, and Entymology_Index_of_Internet_Resources
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