Recommended Reading: 100 Skills You’ll Need For the End of the World (As We Know It)

Images excerpted from: 100 Skills You’ll Need for The End of The World (As We Know It). (c) Ana Maria Spagna. Illustrations by (c) Brian Cronin. and (c) Bethany Caskey. Used with permission of Storey Publishing.

In the prologue to her book, 100 Skills You’ll Need For the End of the World (As We Know It), Ana Maria Spagna describes a high school lesson in which the professor filled the blackboard with cryptic dates. After asking students to speculate on their meaning, he explained that they were all dates predicted to be the day on which the world would end. “The point,” explains Spagna, “was not necessarily that it wasn’t going to happen, but that part of being human is being prepared for the end of the world.”

It turns out Spagna is pretty upbeat when it comes to the Apocalypse.

“Preparation for the end of the world is often seen as hand-wringing or building a bunker, but what good are either of those things really? It’s not just about survival. We have to live and thrive and be human,” says Spagna. Her book, a lighthearted, yet informative guide for post-apocalyptic living, takes the need for humanity and community at the end of days to heart.

The chapters in this easy read are just a page or two each, offering doomsday essentials like hunting, foraging for medicinals or canning food. Some skills are easy to guess. And then there’s the rest. In this book, skills you’ll need for the end of the world also include surprises like laughing, sleeping and storytelling. What went into Spagna’s book will inspire discussion and debate.

For those seeking step-by step instructions on building a shelter or planting a garden, this is not the place to look. Instead, this book is a launching point for discussions about abilities, limitations, priorities and what skills really top the list when it comes to survival.

Making fire and foraging are key survival skills. Images excerpted from: 100 Skills You’ll Need for The End of The World (As We Know It). (c) Ana Maria Spagna. Illustrations by (c) Brian Cronin. and (c) Bethany Caskey. Used with permission of Storey Publishing.

“If this book does one thing,” says Spagna, “I hope that’ll be to spark conversations. There are books about every one of these skills. I wanted this to be a starting point for ideas. A place where you can you can realize that these skills would be within your realm. You might say ‘Hey, I could do stone work or build shelters.’ But there are also things you might never be good at, so the idea of community becomes really important.”

“I think there’s a draw to being able to take control when so much has fallen away,” Spagna continues. “I really admire that, but the next step is to be able to let go or share some of that control. It’s about balance. These are lessons framed against the end of the world, but it’s about how to live in the now.”

Will falconry really be an imperative when the world comes to an end? How about bicycle repair? Is knowing how to hide a basic skill for survival? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it sure is fun to debate.