100 books like Cabin Fever

By Marie-France Boyer,

Here are 100 books that Cabin Fever fans have personally recommended if you like Cabin Fever. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Axel Vervoordt: Wabi Inspirations

Joanna Maclennan Author Of The Foraged Home

From my list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am mainly known as an Interiors Photographer and although accidentally falling into photographing Interiors, it has become a passion, always interested in the story these places tell and alongside my husband we have built our own home creating a unique space using recuperated materials. As part of my work, I am always looking for interesting and inspirational books and places. It is how I train my eye, drawn to the unusual. I am as happy photographing a chateau in Provence as I am in a small and remote cabin in Norway. 

Joanna's book list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space

Joanna Maclennan Why did Joanna love this book?

As quoted by Axel Vervoordt his philosophy “is a belief that a home should be a personal expression of your soul. It should represent the way you want to live, the ideas that define your tastes, perspectives, and connections to the world. The spaces where people share private experiences with family and friends should restore and give energy.
Vervoordt is a master of Interiors and this quote sums up my belief towards my own Interiors. This book is outstanding. It has been a big influence in my life and as a photographer. He incorporates the Japanese philosophy of Wabi Sabi - acceptance of transience and imperfection - and I see this in many aspects of what we have tried to create in our own home. 

By Axel Vervoordt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Axel Vervoordt as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Interior design guru Axel Vervoordt shares his latest inspirations for the home. Axel Vervoordt€™s intense curiosity has fueled his work as an interior designer, spurring him to explore and draw inspiration from cultures around the globe. He was first exposed to Eastern art and philosophy years ago, but today it has become the guiding principle in his work, particularly the concept of Wabi. Developed in the twelfth century, Wabi advocates simplicity and humility, the rejection of all that is superfluous or artificial. Through extraordinary photographs from Japan and Korea to Belgium and Switzerland, Vervoordt invites us to explore the elements…


Book cover of Perfect Imperfect: The Beauty Of Accident Age And Patina

Joanna Maclennan Author Of The Foraged Home

From my list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am mainly known as an Interiors Photographer and although accidentally falling into photographing Interiors, it has become a passion, always interested in the story these places tell and alongside my husband we have built our own home creating a unique space using recuperated materials. As part of my work, I am always looking for interesting and inspirational books and places. It is how I train my eye, drawn to the unusual. I am as happy photographing a chateau in Provence as I am in a small and remote cabin in Norway. 

Joanna's book list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space

Joanna Maclennan Why did Joanna love this book?

This book was not only an inspiration for my first book but a book that visually spoke to me not only through the photography, but the spaces and places included in it. There are many Interiors books on the market but this one is up there as one of my all time favourites. It inspires me to be a better photographer and I find myself looking at this book over and over again. 

By Karen McCartney, Sharyn Cairns, Glen Proebstel

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Perfect Imperfect as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

If you have read The House that Pinterest Built, Smart Spaces, The Alchemy of Things, or Elements of Style you're going to love Perfect Imperfect.

Wabi-sabi and new creative interior design expressions: Perfect Imperfect is a stunning collection of homes and studios of creatives from all over the world, with thought-provoking text by Karen McCartney and stunning visuals by Sharyn Cairns and Glen Proebstel. Perfect Imperfect takes as its founding principle the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi. Wabi-Sabi advocates the beauty to be found in imperfection, impermanence and the authentic. Importantly this is done without losing sight of the benefits of…


Book cover of Kabinett & Kammer: Creating Authentic Interiors

Joanna Maclennan Author Of The Foraged Home

From my list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am mainly known as an Interiors Photographer and although accidentally falling into photographing Interiors, it has become a passion, always interested in the story these places tell and alongside my husband we have built our own home creating a unique space using recuperated materials. As part of my work, I am always looking for interesting and inspirational books and places. It is how I train my eye, drawn to the unusual. I am as happy photographing a chateau in Provence as I am in a small and remote cabin in Norway. 

Joanna's book list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space

Joanna Maclennan Why did Joanna love this book?

This book is one of my most recent purchases. I really love Sean Scherer’s style and it speaks to both myself and my husband.

The photography is great in this book and Sean has a wonderful eye for detail. It’s a feast for the eyes. It has that ‘cabinet de curiosité’ style and so many details I want to keep looking at. I have visited the Catskills area and this book certainly makes me want to go back there again. It is a well-thought-out and inspiring book.

By Sean Scherer, William Abranowicz (photographer),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Kabinett & Kammer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Interior designer, artist, and collector Sean Scherer shares his secrets about applying the principles of two-dimensional art to home design

Sean Scherer’s Kabinett & Kammeris equally a celebration and a guide to both collecting and showing how lively design can integrate disparate objects into beautifully layered ensembles. Scherer’s interiors feature vintage display cabinets housing discarded collections of whittled songbirds, stunning 19th-century maps and school teaching aids, ferns in cast-iron planters, and photomurals. The effect is a supercharged nod to American Gothic heightened by Scherer’s sophisticated palette and sense of proportion. Each photograph by William Abranowicz is a lesson on color…


Book cover of Casa No Name

Joanna Maclennan Author Of The Foraged Home

From my list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am mainly known as an Interiors Photographer and although accidentally falling into photographing Interiors, it has become a passion, always interested in the story these places tell and alongside my husband we have built our own home creating a unique space using recuperated materials. As part of my work, I am always looking for interesting and inspirational books and places. It is how I train my eye, drawn to the unusual. I am as happy photographing a chateau in Provence as I am in a small and remote cabin in Norway. 

Joanna's book list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space

Joanna Maclennan Why did Joanna love this book?

I was given this as a present and what a wonderful present it was. Deborah Turbeville is a wonderful photographer whose work I admire. Her fashion photography was innovative, imaginative and so creative.

This book, a visual diary of her house and time in Mexico is filled with her signature blurred images, from black and white portraits to colourful interiors. It goes against everything we learn in Interiors but it’s magical, evocative, and gothic.

By Deborah Turbeville,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Casa No Name as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the tradition of Kahlo and Allende, Turbeville’s brilliantly stylish portrait of her Mexican house evokes both her vivid imagination and the mystique of Mexico. High-ceilinged rooms surround a central courtyard that is lined with faded frescoes of biblical scenes. The glimmer and shafts of diffused light that stream into the courtyards and curtained rooms add to the romantic atmosphere—one feels as though they have entered into a quintessential Turbeville photograph. Turbeville has captured the spiritual nature of Mexican culture by incorporating into candlelit interiors such traditional religious artifacts as colorful painted tin retablos, hand-carved saints, wooden tableau boxes, and…


Book cover of Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties: The Classic Guide to Building Wilderness Shelters

Jeanie and David Stiles Author Of Cabins: A Guide to Building Your Own Nature Retreat

From my list on that will inspire you to build your own cabin or nature home.

Why are we passionate about this?

We have written 27 “how-to” books on building outdoor projects, including cabins, sheds, and treehouses. David does the illustrations and I do the descriptive writing. Our goal is to make the instructions clear to both right and left brain readers – and to make the two elements complement each other. Our readers often tell us that a computer drawing does not have the same appeal and clarity as hand drawing. We are able to ‘talk’ a reader through the process of building something with our drawings. People often send us photographs of their completed projects – it’s a big part of the satisfaction we get from writing our books.

Jeanie's book list on that will inspire you to build your own cabin or nature home

Jeanie and David Stiles Why did Jeanie love this book?

An oldie but goodie - many of the techniques described are still applicable in modern times. Beard includes lengthy descriptions and illustrations of building all kinds of small shelters, including cabins, treehouses & towers. He helped start the Boy Scouts of America and was an avid woodsman, illustrator, and conservationist. His tips on outdoor living are invaluable – including two chapters on how to use an ax. 

By D.C. Beard,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This excellent hands-on guide by one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America contains a wealth of practical instruction and advice on how to build everything from a bark teepee and a tree-top house to a log cabin and a sod house. No professional architects are needed here; and knowing how to use an axe is more important than possessing carpentry skills.
More than 300 of the author's own illustrations and a clear, easy-to-follow text enable campers to create such lodgings as half-cave shelters, beaver mat huts, birch bark shacks, over-water camps, a Navajo hogan, and a pole…


Book cover of A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams

Kenneth R. Rosen Author Of Troubled: The Failed Promise of America's Behavioral Treatment Programs

From my list on to get you through troubling times.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a journalist and author and a young father, I’ve come to seek more vigorously things that make me smile, things I can cherish and appreciate. My most recent book is dedicated to “the troubled, in trouble, and once troubled.” In promoting the book, I’ve often said I still feel fairly troubled—which is true. Demons never die, we just live to learn with them. So while reading the below books I’ve discovered hallowed moments which fill a person to the brim. After each of these reads I felt that I could surmount most anything.

Kenneth's book list on to get you through troubling times

Kenneth R. Rosen Why did Kenneth love this book?

I’ve owned a number of homes. Most were small, one or two were fairly large. When I set about building my own writing shed I had a clue where to begin, but most frequently—when bashing a nail, jigsawing a piece of wood—I knew very little about why I was making one decision over another much beyond practical considerations. A window could only fit here, and the door must swing this way, lest it hit that support beam. Having a companion to that process, letting not my hammer but the Earth fine-tune my space gave that writing shed life far beyond its function.

By Michael Pollan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Place of My Own as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A captivating personal inquiry into the art of architecture, the craft of building, and the meaning of modern work

“A room of one’s own: Is there anybody who hasn’t at one time or another wished for such a place, hasn’t turned those soft words over until they’d assumed a habitable shape?”

When Michael Pollan decided to plant a garden, the result was the acclaimed bestseller Second Nature. In A Place of My Own, he turns his sharp insight to the craft of building, as he recounts the process of designing and constructing a small one-room structure on his rural Connecticut…


Book cover of Map of Another Town

Marcia DeSanctis Author Of 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

From my list on women in France.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a former television news producer who worked for Barbara Walters and Peter Jennings at ABC News, and at Dateline NBC and CBS’s 60 Minutes. I was always a journalist, but mid-career, I switched lanes from TV to writing. Since then, I've contributed essays and stories to many publications, among them Vogue, Travel & Leisure, The New York Times, BBC Travel, and others. I mostly write about travel, but also cover beauty, wellness, international development, and health. I'm the recipient of five Lowell Thomas Awards for excellence in travel journalism, including one for Travel Journalist of the Year. My book of essays, A Hard Place to Leave: Stories From a Restless Life comes out in May 2022.

Marcia's book list on women in France

Marcia DeSanctis Why did Marcia love this book?

California-born Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher’s contribution to our culture was revolutionary. Before her, no man or woman wrote about food as they might about art: what was noteworthy in the meal, how the cauliflower was cooked or the paté presented, and how all of it made her feel. She is perhaps best known for her masterpiece The Gastronomical Me, her memoir about her sensory awakening around food, cooking, and love when she moved to Dijon, France. After returning to the States, Fisher moved with her two daughters to Aix-en-Provence following World War II. By now, the memoir of Provence—the farmhouse, lavender fields, and dappled summer light—have become a genre unto themselves. But as with everything this trailblazer wrote, few have ever done is as well or with such exquisite understatement as Fisher did in Map of Another Town.

It is a soulful and beautifully atmospheric chronicle of building…

By M.F.K. Fisher,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Map of Another Town as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'I was a brash newcomer to it, and yet when I first felt the rhythm of its streets and smelled its ancient smells, I said, 'Of course,' for I was once more in my own place, an invader of what was already mine.'

M.F.K. Fisher moved to Aix-en-Provence with her daughters after the Second World War. In Map of Another Town, she traces the history of this ancient and famous town, known for its tree-lined avenues, pretty fountains and ornate façades. Beyond the tourist sights, Fisher introduces us to its inhabitants: the waiters and landladies, down-and-outs and local characters all…


Book cover of Your Cabin in the Woods

Jeanie and David Stiles Author Of Cabin: A Guide to Building the Perfect Getaway

From my list on hand-illustrated books on building.

Why are we passionate about this?

As the authors of 27 hand-illustrated books, we are acutely aware of the time and skill required for good rendering. We are old-schoolers ourselves, having cut our teeth on “how-to” books before computers came into vogue. Our readers often tell us that a computer drawing does not have the same appeal and clarity as hand drawing. We are able to ‘talk’ a reader through the process of building something with our drawings. We have also found that the best illustrated books often have the best content!

Jeanie's book list on hand-illustrated books on building

Jeanie and David Stiles Why did Jeanie love this book?

This is an oldie but goodie. It speaks to our own love of simple structures, designed to get you out in nature. The illustrations are simpler but fit in very well with the language of the era, and the personal philosophy of the author. There are floor plans, cabin renderings, and many smaller illustrations of the tools and furnishings that might go into a simple cabin. It is more than a how-to book. It is a celebration of cabin-living writ large. 

By Conrad E. Meinecke, Victor Aures,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Your Cabin in the Woods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For 70 years, readers have been enjoying Meinecke's classic odes to the simple life, Your Cabin in the Woods (1943) and Cabin Craft and Outdoor Living (1947). For the first time, these books are combined into a deluxe two-color vintage package, featuring hundreds of charming illustrations by Victor Aures, known for his work with the Boy Scouts of America.

In writing both practical and inspirational, Meinecke details how to turn your dream into a reality, from building plans to choosing land to using tools. However the book's enduring appeal owes in large part to its warmly engaging tone and firm…


Book cover of A Heart in the Right Place

Janet Philp Author Of The Lama Drama 2019 (The 3rd Sphere)

From my list on that make you think ‘what if…’.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a freelance anatomy educator, artist, author, mother, and dog owner. I like to fill my time by engaging the public with science, meeting them where they are and exploring their boundaries. If they are interested in zombies, or flying unicorns then let's start there and mix fantasy and reality to make them think.

Janet's book list on that make you think ‘what if…’

Janet Philp Why did Janet love this book?

An action-comedy that surpasses their classic Clovenhoof series. Based around an attempt to plan a weekend away so many twists and turns are added that you wonder where the authors get their imagination from. When assassins and werewolves appear you can't help but keep turning the pages.

By Heide Goody,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Heart in the Right Place as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

All Nick wants to do is take his dying father for a perfect father-son weekend in the Scottish Highlands. It’s not much to ask, is it? A log cabin, a roaring fire, a bottle of fine whisky and two days to paper over the cracks in their relationship.However, Nick didn’t plan on making the trip with a dead neighbour in the back of his car. Or the neighbour’s dog. He really didn’t plan on being pursued by a psychotic female assassin intent on collecting body parts. And he really, really didn’t plan on encountering a platoon of heavily armed mercenaries,…


Book cover of Ranger Ralph Comic #5

Carolyn Watson Dubisch Author Of The Dragon in The Closet, Book One

From my list on graphics and comics for kids learning to read.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been writing and drawing children’s books and comic books for kids for over 23 years. I've always loved the comic book format and visual storytelling. Reading pictures is actually very stimulating for kids and adults alike. I’m also a parent to three daughters and teach art at an elementary school locally, so I work with children and see what captures their imaginations and inspires them. As someone who’s written and illustrated numerous graphic novels for kids, moderates a children’s book review group, and reads so many of the newest books available, I selected these graphic novels as some of the best I’ve read in the different genres that have been released recently.

Carolyn's book list on graphics and comics for kids learning to read

Carolyn Watson Dubisch Why did Carolyn love this book?

Ranger Ralph and his sidekick, Elvis, the deer return in this hilarious new issue of Ranger Ralph.

After a large frozen meal of Hungry Ranger dinners Ralph falls asleep in front of the news on the TV. Even Elvis falls asleep and he misses his date with Windy. To make it up to her he decides to gather a bouquet of flowers from the side of the road. An entire hive of bees seek their revenge and Rager Ralph is in trouble again!

Very cute short stories that kids will love. The slapstick humor, bright colors, and detailed art come together to make this a great series of comics. This new issue, released in 2023, is no exception to the quality that Ranger Ralph fans have come to expect. The reading level is perfect for middle grade readers.

By Steven Oerding,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ranger Ralph Comic #5 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ranger Ralph Comic #5 continues the story from comic #4 and is the only continued story from a previous comic in the series. We follow our hero and his companion home to their log cabin in the suburbs. Redmund makes a Hungry Ranger Frozen dinner that expands into a huge 9 course meal after its cooked as we watch him devour it. He ends up asleep with Elvis on the couch in front of the TV as the neighborhood listens to him snore. They all think of ways to help stop  from snoring as we look in. The next morning…


Book cover of Axel Vervoordt: Wabi Inspirations
Book cover of Perfect Imperfect: The Beauty Of Accident Age And Patina
Book cover of Kabinett & Kammer: Creating Authentic Interiors

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