Best for Beginners: Top Science & Math Picks for Newcomers

Former Navy SEAL and BUD/S instructor Joel Lambert focuses on staying home safely during a crisis. The 240-page guide includes step-by-step instructions with high-resolution photos and illustrations, covering water purification, food storage, first aid and power outage preparedness.

Reviewers say it is easy to understand and follow, and one describes its storage methods as especially detailed. Several mention it as useful for hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters.

Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist and host of the Huberman Lab podcast, organizes this book around seven areas: sleep, exercise, stress control, nutrition, light, focus and learning, and personal growth. Each area offers protocols, which are specific practices you can try, such as viewing sunlight soon after waking. Buyers describe the book as well organized and easy to understand, with each protocol given its own section so you can find what you need quickly.

John Lofty Wiseman's handbook covers basic campcraft, navigation, shelter, food, first aid and disaster response. This third edition adds more than 100 pages, including a new chapter on urban survival. Readers praise its clear explanations and photos, which help make the material easier to follow for someone starting from scratch.

Because it covers so much ground, it works better as a reference you return to as your skills grow than as a book to finish in one sitting.

Mark Kurlansky traces how salt shaped civilization, from its use as currency to its role in trade routes, cities, wars and revolutions. The book is built on colorful characters and a long series of surprising stories rather than technical explanations, so you do not need a background in science to enjoy it.

Readers describe it as well researched and entertaining, with a fresh view of ancient cultures. Opinions on readability are split, with some finding it easy and others calling it dry.

Jay Stratton describes more than three decades of service in the U.S. military and intelligence community, and his effort to investigate unidentified anomalous phenomena. The book is written as a first-person memoir, with a narrative pace that many readers find engaging.

Buyers say it gives a clear background on the topic and that the author's expertise lends it credibility. Others feel it does not go into much detail, so expectations matter here.

Michael A. Singer draws on meditation and mindfulness traditions to explain how to observe your thoughts and emotions and stay in the present moment. The book is copublished with the Institute of Noetic Sciences and has reached more than a million readers.

It is written in accessible prose, with no technical training required. Its approach is reflective rather than scientific, so it works best if you are open to reading slowly and thinking about your own habits.