Here are 95 books that Home Farm fans have personally recommended if you like
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Aged six, I was first given a tiny piece of garden where I grew radishes and lettuces. I haven’t stopped growing my own food since! Everything about it is good for you and I have been writing about this for many years in various magazines and books. I have always been fascinated with the idea of self-sufficiency and love to read about methods old and new.
This is the classic book on self-sufficiency that started my interest when I first read it decades ago. John Seymour was the master and teacher and the book is crammed with practical methods with many useful illustrations. Many people I know who are fascinated with the idea of self-sufficiency, and successful practitioners, were initially inspired by this book.
Embrace off-grid green living with this all-encompassing guide to self-sufficiency, your new go-to guide for a more sustainable way of life.
For over 40 years, John Seymour has inspired and motivated thousands of people to make more eco-friendly choices to enrich their lives and live sustainably. Now, his bestselling self-sufficiency book offers step-by-step instructions on all things environment-friendly, from preserving your harvest to living off land, this survival guide has it all. So what are you waiting for?
Dive straight in to discover:
-Detailed step-by-step guide for achieving a self-sufficient lifestyle tailored to your needs and environment -Encyclopaedic knowledge on…
Aged six, I was first given a tiny piece of garden where I grew radishes and lettuces. I haven’t stopped growing my own food since! Everything about it is good for you and I have been writing about this for many years in various magazines and books. I have always been fascinated with the idea of self-sufficiency and love to read about methods old and new.
This is a very comprehensive book by engineer and TV presenter Dick Strawbridge and his son James. Not only does it cover the usual themes of food production but is also littered with many practical engineering projects that can help you lead a self-reliant life - such as methods for producing your own electricity, water. The many excellent photos help guide you through the projects in detail.
Embrace off-grid green living with this all-encompassing guide to self-sufficiency alongside Dick Strawbridge and his son James.
Introducing Practical Self-Sufficiency, your new go-to survival guide offering step-by-step instructions on all things environment-friendly, jam-packed with tips and tricks for off-grid living to anyone looking to embrace a life of sustainability. So what are you waiting for?
Dive straight in to discover:
-Detailed step-by-step guide covering diverse aspects of off-grid living -Featuring fully-illustrated step-by-step projecte visually demonstrating how to achieve key aspects of sustainable living from start to finish. -Encyclopaedic knowledge on a range of eco-friendly tasks such as brewing beer and…
Aged six, I was first given a tiny piece of garden where I grew radishes and lettuces. I haven’t stopped growing my own food since! Everything about it is good for you and I have been writing about this for many years in various magazines and books. I have always been fascinated with the idea of self-sufficiency and love to read about methods old and new.
This is a true story of Chas Griffin’s attempts at living a self-sufficient life on a new smallholding in Wales. Not only is it hilarious but describes all the ups and downs and unexpected disasters yet remains warm and inviting. Rather than just an instruction book, this will show you what it’s really like and possibly give you second thoughts! This was Chas’s first book and so good I went on the read his subsequent titles.
In 1982 the Griffins left the security of suburbia to grow garlic in West Wales. From the struggle with rurality that ensued grew (organically) the very amusing, and informative, warts-and-all account Scenes From a Smallholding .
Now in this sometimes touching, but always funny sequel, Chas reveals what happened four years after their arrival - when the dream had been well and truly dreamt and they were experiencing some rather rude awakenings. Did they ever achieve the blissful good life? Are they surrounded by organic veg? How have the family coped with their new rural life?
Aged six, I was first given a tiny piece of garden where I grew radishes and lettuces. I haven’t stopped growing my own food since! Everything about it is good for you and I have been writing about this for many years in various magazines and books. I have always been fascinated with the idea of self-sufficiency and love to read about methods old and new.
I have read this book several times it is so packed with ideas and inspiration. The author travels to a variety of communities, some small, some larger, and investigates how the people are tackling their ambition for self-sufficiency in numerous different ways. If you’re thinking of an alternative off-grid life of self-sufficiency then you will learn just as many ways that may not suit you as those that do. A great education into the realities of this sort of life.
Off-grid: a place, building or person without mains water or power. Static or mobile - in a house or a hut, a boat or a camper van - to live off-grid is all about loosending the ties that bind us to teh fmailiar world of commuting, mortgages, no time and fast food, in order to rediscover our place in the natural world. Complete with camper van, Nick sets off around the UK to find off-grid heaven and meet people who are living the dream. Along the way he runs into backpackers and businessmen, radical hermits and right-wing survivalists - and…
I started to garden seriously when we had three young kids and little income. We had limited space and had to be ingenious about how and what we grew. A flock of chickens soon joined the effort, adding fresh eggs, compost-fueling manure, and plenty of entertainment. As we moved, we always had a garden, adding structures like sheds, trellises, tomato cages, fencing, and chicken coops. My work writing books and articles about backyard homesteading gave me the chance to meet resourceful people with expertise miles beyond my own. I always came away from those encounters loaded with new ideas to incorporate into next year’s garden.
I first got acquainted with John Seymour through the original version of this book, The Self-Sufficient Gardener. I was charmed by his earthy lore and practical tips – an author who truly knew his stuff. A plus was the beautiful illustrations in the book. Its new permutation, The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live Itwas been expanded to cover everything from micro-urban gardens to 5-acre homesteads. While gardening is the focus, the book includes plenty of information on butchering, brewing, canning—even spinning flax. What the book doesn’t include are plans and step-by-step photos for building structures, though it does include rudimentary information on metalworking and carpentry. Most importantly, Seymour has a lifetime of gardening and farming experience to draw upon. The reader reaps the benefit.
Embrace off-grid green living with a new edition of the bestselling classic guide to a more sustainable way of life from the father of self-sufficiency.
For over 40 years, John Seymour has inspired thousands to make more responsible, enriching, and eco-friendly choices with his advice on living sustainably. The Self-Sufficienct Life and How to Live It offers step-by-step instructions on everything from chopping trees to harnessing solar power; from growing fruit and vegetables, and preserving and pickling your harvest, to baking bread, brewing beer, and making cheese. Seymour shows you how to live off the land, running your own smallholding…
California’s San Joaquin Valley is so congenial to plants I thought it made me a gardener. When I got my first job in a retail nursery I quickly realized how little I knew. Twenty years in the nursery trade expanded the depth and breadth of my garden skills. I owe my horticultural education to knowledgeable colleagues, an unending stream of interesting questions from nursery customers, and especially to Ed Laivo who introduced me to an ArcticGlo nectarine that commanded my attention.
Most of us who took action on our ache to “get back to the land” gave ourselves over to a rustic bucolia we’d created in our minds. And, yes, as it turned out, it was all of that, the harmony of seasons, the deep peace, the night sky, the quail, and deer. It was other things, too, things we hadn’t reckoned on—isolation, endless labor, and the hourly rate of the well man. Readable and entertaining, Get Your Pitchfork On! eases the urban to rural transition with hard-won practical advice. It will infuse your dream, whatever its scale, with a healthy dose of preparedness to assure its best chance of success.
For hard-working office workers Kristy Athens and husband Michael, farming was a romantic dream. After purchasing farm land in Oregon's beautiful Columbia Gorge, Athens and hubby were surprised to learn that the realities of farming were challenging and unexpected. Get Your Pitchfork On! provides the hard-learned nuts-and-bolts of rural living from city folk who were initially out of their depth. Practical and often hilarious, Get Your Pitchfork On! reads like a twenty-first century Egg and I.
Get Your Pitchfork On! gives urban professionals the practical tools they need to realize their dream, with basics of home, farm, and hearth. It…
In 2005 I realised that society was gradually, inexorably, headed off a cliff. So I quit a job I loved – a great decision! – and followed John Michael Greer's advice to “collapse now and avoid the rush”. Through that I’ve written a film, books, and peer-reviewed articles, co-founded organisations and movements, been arrested for direct action, advised governments, and come to live at a money-free pub! And now lead the ‘Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time’ online program, through Vermont’s Sterling College. I haven’t learned to change the course of history, but have discovered the ‘dark optimism’ of meaningful – even joyous – paths through such times, with eyes wide open.
Turning to practicalities, Mark Boyle’s writing redirected my life.
The Moneyless Man thrilled me, shining with the evident integrity, commitment, and insight that drove him to give up money. Long story short, I went to meet him, we became firm friends, and over a decade later, we’ve built a small community around our moneyless inn, The Happy Pig!
The Way Home explores his later decision to live – to this day – without electricity, and all it’s teaching him.
From his beautiful self-built cabin here on our land, it’s a reflective and hands-in-earth meditation on navigating these omnicidal times: "Despite knowing little or nothing of the bloody, mucky realities of land-based lives, techno-utopians will warn you to be careful not to romanticise the past. On this I agree, and I know it first-hand. But be even more careful of those who romanticise the future..."
It was 11pm when I checked my email for the last time and turned off my phone for what I hoped would be forever.
No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce.
In this honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life without modern technology, Mark Boyle explores the hard won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the spring, foraging…
I've been blessed in my career, beginning as a 16-year-old, being an assistant manager at 17, a general manager at 20, and the face of the franchise at the age of 30 for over 16 years. This has led to me learning how to get people more motivated to perform their work than they ever thought possible when they accepted the position. I spent over 30 years literally “growing up” with this company and in this business, having been exposed to some of the best companies within their respective industries, learning how they source, on-board, train, and retain their team members, as well as some of the most influential motivational speakers throughout the world.
As we live and go throughout our daily lives, we will invariably be interacting with people from all walks of life.
We know that we all are carrying burdens, stresses, and challenges so…why not do our best to “make someone’s day?” Howard does an amazing job of describing just how simple this can be done in a variety of ways, depending on where we are, what we are doing, and who we are with/interacting with. It requires little or no work on our part to “make someone’s day”.
And as a leader, it will be impactful to your followers by setting the example in heart-filled, sincere, and caring ways. We never know what others are going through in the moment we are interacting with them. This book gives us all the perspective we need to help train us to make that interaction so compelling that the other person will at…
The most powerful words someone can say to you are "You made my day!" You haven't just committed an act of kindness when you hear those words. You have done something at the right time and in the right way that may turn someone's day or even life around, inspire and motivate them, or get them unstuck. As a leader, it's a most powerful tool for inspiring your colleagues and staffers. As a person, it's heart-lifting and impactful to those around you. With many examples and short exercises, Make Someone's Day teaches you how to make people feel like VIPs.
I’m Steve Sheppard and I’m arguably the best person in the UK to create this list as I am myself the archetypal funny author whom nobody has heard of, having written three comedy spy thrillers, two out (A Very Important Teapot and Bored to Death in the Baltics) and one on the way (Poor Table Manners), all published by a genuine indie publisher, Claret Press. I would have loved to include a funny thriller in my list, but sadly, they are not to be found–not without resorting to farce and slapstick anyway.
This is a hugely entertaining, wickedly funny and deliciously satirical novel with a wide cast of characters. if the title puts you off, don't let it. An imaginative, slightly weird, definitely non-pc read which might not be to everyone’s tastes but was certainly to mine.
Tangle is a tree-hugger who is often mistaken for a glamorous witch. She is proud of her organic smallholding in the heart of Africa. When threatened by a bullying and corrupt businessman who starts trashing the environment and the local people, who can she turn to? Surely not that foul-mouthed Aussie TV presenter, nor those famous and fabulously wealthy international holidaymakers, who suddenly invade her precious patch. And how could an international food-eating competition, sponsored by the USA’s tin-eared goodwill ambassador, solve her problems? Surrounded by xenophobic bickering, Tangle struggles to assert her authority, aided by some unlikely admirers. The…
I write historical fiction, non-fiction, and biography. My historical fiction is set in the eighteenth century, which is often pictured as a time when people swanned about in fancy clothes, lived on country estates, travelled in gleaming carriages, and dined and danced their nights away in glittering assembly rooms. But most people didn’t live like that at all, although they are the ones who made the clothes, worked on the estates, drove the carriages, cooked the food, and cleaned the rooms. The books on my list focus on history from their point of view. In my own work – fiction and non-fiction – I’m also interested in telling the stories of so-called “ordinary” people.
My father was Welsh, and so I’m drawn to Welsh stories and history. Feet in Chains is about Jane and Ifan Gruffydd’s struggle to keep body and soul together on their small holding near Caernarfon, and raise their children. Ifan is a quarryman, at the mercy of powerful employers who can lower wages or increase hours at will. Kate Roberts was herself the daughter of a quarryman and was brought up on her parents’ smallholding in Caernarfonshire. Like two of the Gruffydd children, she won a scholarship enabling her to attend school. She became a teacher, but had to give up her career when she married because of the marriage bar on women. Her personal experiences give the novel much of its power.
Snowdonia, 1880, and Jane Gruffydd is a newcomer to the district, dressed to the nines and almost fainting in the heat of the interminable prayer meeting out on the mountainside...In the pages of this classic 1936 novel, we see the passionate and headstrong Jane grow up and grow old, struggling to bring up a family of six children on the pittance earned by her slate-quarrying husband, Ifan. Spanning the next forty years, the novel traces the contours not only of one vividly evoked Welsh family but of a nation coming to self-consciousness; it begins in the heyday of Methodist fervour…
