31 Books

Permaculture books telling you how to grow things abound.   They are many, varied and wonderful.  For some reason, however, permaculture books telling you how to EAT what you grow in interesting, creative and delicious ways are not, in fact, very abundant.   This is a pretty serious gap, given that in many cases, it is actually easier for people to take up gardening than it is to fully figure out what to do with the abundance of things they produce.  While most of us know what to do with an occasional handful of kale or greenbeans, the culinary education (poor and limited) of most of us just…

Hi Folks - Sorry for not announcing this sooner.  Here are the winners. Email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com with your address! Where There Is No Doctor: Karen (for her daughter) Where There Is No Dentist: Sarah Where Women Have No Doctor: Farmer Amber Thanks again to the kind donor who sent them and also to all of you for giving my kids an excuse to pull names out of a hat - it is one of their favorite things about my blog ;-).   Sharon

It is the nature of popular books to inspire people to wildly overstate their importance.  The most stunning example is Abraham Lincoln's statement upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862 “So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war.”   While _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was an incredibly important book, one that moved many people to shift their sympathies on the subject of slavery, this was, of course, the wildest hyperbole.  So too are claims that _Diet For a Small Planet_ invented modern vegetarianism, that _The Omnivore's Dilemma_ started the local foods movement.  …

I wrote this for Dr, Seuss's 105th birthday, and thought it was worth posting (a bit belatedly) for his 108th. I once read an incredibly entertaining literary critical analysis of _The Cat in the Hat_ which began from the premise that all the action in TCITH is an attempt to fill up the overwhelming absence of the mother from the scene. She has "gone out for the day" leaving her children untended, something she clearly is in the habit of doing, since there's a sequel with the same issue embedded. The glimpses we get of "mother's new gown" and her empty bedstead stand in implicit reference…

I admit it, I'm a generalist in a world of specialists, and I always have been. Looking back on my career history, for example, I see the way I attempted to make the academic model of specialization adapt to my own taste for generalism - my doctoral project was a little bit insane, integrating demography, history, textual analysis and half a dozen other disciplines across a 250 year timeline - just the sort of thing advisers hate to see. The polite word was "ambitious" but "nuts" is probably more accurate. As you can probably guess from the title of this blog (for those who haven't read…

As the steam bath of summer abates and cool air moves in, as labor day weekend marks the end of swimming and time to start thinking about things like firewood and school, I find I regain enthusiasm about really cooking again. During the summer, I'm often a tepidly enthusiastic cook - it is so easy to go out in the garden and mix greens and whatever is ripe with a hardboiled egg, some dried fruit or a bit of cheese and call that dinner. Sliced tomatoes with basil, barely cooked corn on the cob and something else quick - some grilled veggies tossed with pasta and homemade goat cheese or eggs…

I didn't expect to like _Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother_ - in fact, I expected to hate it. Instead, I found it funny, charming and moving - and give Amy Chua a lot of credit for having the ovaries to expose herself. I didn't just like the book, I loved it. If that seems strange, give me a minute to explain before you assume I'm secretly Mommy Dearest ;-). I should note that I am not a Tiger parent, although Chua and I perhaps have more in common than you might think. You see, like Chua, I don't necessarily think that that assumptions of western parenting are always right. Like Chua, I…

Summer is just about here, and you need some summer reading. Light. Fuzzy. Delightful. Amusing. Perfect for the deck chair or the sand. Nevermind the fact that you are a low-energy, transitioning, cheap, homseteading type, and your deck chair is probably planted on your porch, and the sand is the local playground sandpit - hey, it is summer, you've got to kick back with a book. But what book? The contemporary equivalent of _The Devil Wears Prada_ isn't exactly the stuff of anti-consumerist legend. He may not be that into you, but since really you are both into your garden, who gives…

Remember how I said I was going to do 31 book reviews in January, and well...didn't? On Friday, I finally got reliable internet back, just in time to shut down for the sabbath, so now I'm playing catch up. Got to get about 25 book reviews done today. That should happen, right? Just a reminder for those participating in the Post-apocalyptic Novel Reading Club (PANRC), we'll be finishing up _Prelude_ by Kurt Cobb this week, and moving on to _Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson next week. We're following that up in March with Pat Frank's _Alas Babylon_. Also, there are still spots in…

Note: I'm way behind on my 31 books resolution - I'll have to hurry to catch up. In the meantime, will you count these 12? I bet you don't own them! Worms Eat my Laundry by Alcea Grovestock - Worms are hot - in-house domestic composting is everywhere. But have you considered the way red wigglers could augment your laundry routine? After all, so many of us, taken up with homestead and farm work, garden and family chores have developed that layer of laundry that never seems to get washed, composting at the bottom of the hamper. With the addition of red worms and regular contributions to…

As I mentioned in a previous post about Carol Deppe's wonderful _The Resilient Gardener_, all garden books are fundamentally local. That localness is why I so love _Gardens of Use and Delight_ by Jigs and Jo Ann Gardner. I discovered this book last year at my local library, and have taken it out half a dozen times, enough that I must, finally, purchase it. The Gardeners bought an old farm in Cape Breton and gradually, over decades, transformed it into a place that is both beautiful and productive, despite terrible soil, a cold climate and a host of disadvantages. What's wonderful about…

There are a lot of gardening books out there, and whenever anyone asks me for my favorite ones, I find myself struggling to make a list. There are three rules about garden books to remember. 1. All garden books are local to one degree or another, unless they are very general. That is, all garden books are fundamentally about the experience of gardeners in particular places and in particular circumstances. Beyond basic books, the best garden books are by authors who remember this and try and connect what they have done with others, while also acknowledging the limits of their experience…

I get a lot of books to review, and I don't write enough book pieces, I fear. Because of this, books I really like, and books you might want to read get missed, so I've decided in the spirit of New Years Resolutions to do 31 short book reviews in the month of January, of books I think are important. Some are important because they offer practical skill sets my readers might want to have, others are important because they offer insights, or philosophical explorations, or even an escape into an imaginary flight worth taking. I'm not promising a review a day - I like a day off now and again…