I want a decent compass and a book on how to actually use it. I don't need to call in surgical air strikes and I don't want to do orienting competitions -- just enough knowledge to stand a reasonable chance of being able to get myself out of trouble should I find myself lost.

Using Amazon reviews, it seems that David Seidman's book "The Essential Wilderness Navigator" in combination with a Suunto A-10 would give me the best bang for the buck. If there is someone on Whiteblaze who really knows a lot about this topic and will tell me that either or both choices are woefully inadequate, I'll place my order later this week.

Suunto A-10:
http://www.amazon.com/Suunto-SS012063013-A-10-Compass/dp/B000FEXZGW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330959262&sr=8-1

"The Essential Wilderness Navigator":
http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Wild...=36D2W2NH8WSLE

BTW, I thought Spoke's links to the YouTube navigation videos were really helpful.