(VIDEO) 7 Surprising Self-sufficiency Books
We want you to know if you buy something using the retail links in our posts, we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you). We will never recommend anything we don’t believe in. Not for all the butter in Sweden. You can read our full policy if you have questions or contact us directly.
It's fall here on the homestead which is the start of the unofficial cozy season as the days get longer. It’s the also the perfect time to start putting together your book list for those cold dark months ahead. I have so many books I love, but today I'm going to give you my top seven. So let's get started!
Book Recommendations and The Homesteading Fundamentals Framework
I'm so excited to have you here today to talk about books. I love to read and there's so many great books about healthy, sustainable living that I'd love to share with you. I had a hard time narrowing it down! I decided to use your Homesteading Fundamentals Framework to organize my thoughts for you. That’s the six categories we use to learn and teach about sustainable and self-sufficient living. If you are curious about the framework, you can learn more in our videos and articles, but especially in our free quickstart guide to homesteading - you can download that on our website.
Now like I said, there's six categories but I couldn't quite narrow it down that far. So I'm gonna have a seventh bonus book at the end. I would also love to know what your favorite books are. You can leave those in the comment section below. And if you've read any of the books that I mentioned, I'd also love to know your thoughts on those.
Outdoors and Wildlife book: The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival
So the first category I'm going to start with is outdoors and wildlife. The book that I think is the most worthwhile reading in this category is, The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival by Jason Knight. This book is brand new out this week and I've already read it cover to cover. Full disclosure, Jason and I got our start together in wilderness survival and nature connection schools getting close to three decades ago, and as you may know, I'm a park ranger now and sometimes I guest teach at his school which is called Alderleaf. And you may have even seen the videos we made about him and his school.
Now, the reasons that I really liked this book on 1) I know that Jason has lived and taught this stuff. And so his book is coming from his own direct experiences with that, as well as teaching thousands of students. He’s also consulted with many agencies, TV shows, and the award-winning move, Captain Fantastic. 2) There is no extra filler or fluff. Many of these kinds of books are filled with a lot of ego from the writer or flashy skills that will not help you survive. This book does away with all of that.
And 3) and most importantly I really love is the way it's organized. He starts each chapter with his own story and experience in that section. Then he goes over what will be covered. He talks about why each item is a high priority, such as water for example. He talks about this as a high priority and the different types of things you need to consider such as water contamination. And then he goes over different types of water sources that you might seek out some ways of doing the purification that you could do in the wild. He gives step by step instruction, with full color pictures. Each chapter ends with a summary. At the end are a ton of other resources.
The really cool thing about this book is if you buy it right now you get many free bonuses during the launch.Let me be clear, I get no type of affiliate kick back or money out of you buying this book. I just think it's really worthwhile and it's a great opportunity to gain his knowledge if you can't actually go to his school. The wisdom in this book could literally prevent you from dying.
Planning and Mindset Book: The Good Life
The second category I'm going to cover today is planning and mindset. The book I want to share with you is The Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing. This is actually compilation of all of their works that they wrote starting in the Great Depression and into the1960s. This is not so much a practical how to book (though they do go into detail about their projects), it's more of an inspiration. This is the first book I found where I heard the term “rat race” and getting out of it.Also, the idea of living a semi-self sufficient life, or the process of trying to bring your daily life into alignment with your broader philosophical values. It's beautifully written. It's an absolute inspiration. And for anybody who is wanting to get out of that rat race mindset (wether or not you move to the country) and into a different way I highly recommend reading this book.
Home and Construction Book: The Home Systems Guide
The next category I'm going to cover is home and construction. The book I recommend in this section is Home Systems Guide: How to Operate Your Home by Mr. FixIt. This book is really valuable whether or not you live in an apartment or a condo, in the city or in the country. All of us at least in the modern Western world (especially in the US) have pretty similar systems in their home for plumbing and electricity. And even if you are not the one who's going to be doing those repairs, it's really important for you to understand how they work and to be able to communicate about them for a better sense of independence and self sufficiency. The reason I like this book is that the diagrams are very straightforward, and explanations are written in plain language.
Grow and Tend Book: The Four Season Harvest
The next category I'm going to cover is grow and tend. The book that I recommend that you get in this category before any other is Elliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest. Now there's probably an updated version of this book available, but the copy I bought it I think about 20 years ago (before the internet was really even a thing) is one I came across in a garden store. The reason that I love it so much is his writing is really inspiring and accessible and helps give you confidence in growing. He also helps to understand about the ability to grow year round, whereas a lot of people when they get into gardening, think they can really only grow food in the summer. But if Coleman can do it, so can you. He’s in New England and dealing with some of the harshest winters around. This is the book where I learned about cold frames and he even had instructions on how to build them. And my first cold frame I built was out of this book! So highly recommend this one for getting started with growing food year round.
Food and Drink Book: Wild Remedies
The next category we're gonna cover is food and drink. The book that I recommend you pick up in this category is Wild Remedies by Rosalee de la foret and Emily Han from Learning Herbs. There's so many things I can tell you that I love about this book! But let me give you an example. It covers different seasons and then different plants that you can harvest and use within that season. Let’s take elderberry fruit. It goes over sort of the parts that you use the basics of the plant. They talk about the medicinal uses in general, and then they cover illustrations and how to harvest it.They also talk about how to garden with it. Then comes the best part. They give you recipes. For this plant, they give you a recipe for elderberry syrup. This is an essential item on our homestead! The book has all sorts of other kinds of recipes you can make. In the beginning they also talk about wildcrafting, so you can get comfortable with foraging for wild plants. This book is also great if you want to start thinking about your food as medicine, which is how we approach nutrition.
Sew and Craft Book: Heaving Duty Sewing
We’ve arrived at the final category which is sew and craft. There's one book in this category that I could not recommend more than any others: Heavy Duty Selling by Anton Sandqvist. Now I could be biased because he is Swedish, like I am. But what I love about this book is that it's a very no nonsense direct, Nordic or Scandinavian approach to sewing.
I find that a lot of sewing books tend to be very feminine and very fussy. And while I welcome everybody to have their own style and have their own needs met, that's just not who I am. So even though I've been sewing a really long time I found his book very refreshing.
If you've never sewn before this is a great book to start with. Because Anton is a self-made sewist as well. And not only that, but he actually has a company that's operating in at least 30 countries around the world that's very successfully selling products that he has designed and made. With this book he walks you through how to get started, such as what equipment that you need, how to begin with a sewing machine, types of fabric, and hardware. Then he gives you specific projects such as aprons and bags and knife rolls and backpacks.
By the time you finish this book you will be well prepared to then design your own projects (which is usually what all of us at our heart really want if we're independent and self starters).
Bonus book: Grow Now
We have arrived at the bonus book! The book that I would love to share with you is Grow Now by Emily Murphy. The subtitle is, “how we can save our health communities and planet one garden at a time”. This book covers a lot of really interesting scientific information, as well as actionable tips that you can take whether you live in the city country or somewhere in between. Such as 15simple easy ways to grow your NQ which she called Nature Quotient. These are things you can do whatever you even if you live in a high-rise.
Emily’s a blog called Pass the Pistil and I highly recommend that you also follow her on social media. Her book is a great one if you're like us and feeling maybe a little anxious and concerned about the what the future might hold for our planet. This is a book that will help you feel empowered to start taking action right where you are, right now.
Well there you go. There's my seven recommendations for books to help you live a healthier, more sustainable and self sufficient life. If you have any of your own book recommendations or thoughts that you'd like to share about the books that I shared, go ahead and leave them in the comment section below.
And remember there is no one right way to homestead, only the way that's right for you. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Okay Well Thomas has joined us, went to the gym for dogmas.
