The Self-sufficient Life and How to Live It

This is probably the best book I have read on living the self-sufficient life style. It contains a lot of information with much detail on most topics.

No book can be all things to all people, but this one is pretty darn close. I've been a homesteader off and on for 25 years, and I've bought a lot of books, but this one is the best I've found.

Lavishly illustrated in full color, this DK book includes plenty of information for the beginner as well as the more experienced back-to-the-lander. My husband and I especially love the 1-Acre Plan and 5-Acre Plan, well illustrated with how the land should be divided up for maximum fertility and efficiency. We really like the instructions for sheep shearing which are half the work of what the Storey Guide tells you to attempt! We also enjoy the author's sense of humor and sense of what's important (and rejection of what's overemphasized in modern society). There is so much information in here that there's no way to absorb it in one sitting -- it's an extremely interesting and well-illustrated encyclopedia of self-sufficient living and an essential addition to your homestead library.

The only negatives are that it's written from a British perspective (some of the circumstances and animals are different here in the US) and that it isn't truly a 100% complete guide for all homesteaders wanting all information about everything related to rural living. But as I said before, what book can be? This one comes very, very close, and before long you'll find that it's becoming dog-eared and marked, smudged with garden soil, splashed with recipe ingredients, and worn in very nicely like a comfortable pair of practical shoes.

I am sure it is not the quentisential guide to all details pretaining to self sufficiency but in my humble city born and raised opinion, this is the perfect intro to all things self sufficient! This will get you started on everything, and from there read up on each subject individually by their own specialists. I think this is wize anyway since not one person can literally posses the knowledge on everything..or at least in a way that will go in to depth on problems! The book starts out with diagrams of several possible farm solutions, the city farm, the comunity farm, the 1 acre farm and the 5 acre farm. We just purchased a house with 6 acres and this is just what we needed to make the daunting task of turning a blank peice of land into our dreams! I hope you all will get as much from this book as I have in the 2 hours I just spent browsing it! I know that when I really dig into this book I will find it a valuable resource! Yeah for self sufficency!!

The book is very good. The information is extremely usefull. All potential customers shoud however know that "The Sel-Sufficient Life, and How To Live It" is identical to the book"The New complete book of Self Sufficiency" by the same author. While I would highly recomend this book do not order both books. Except for a few words changed in the intro and the preface the books are the same, page for page and chapter for chapter.

If you can't get your hands on Country Life by Paul Heiney, this is your next best bet. Nicely illustrated and covers all elements of what it takes to become reliant upon yourself and your land. This book would prove useful to anyone interested in any component of self-sufficiency from a small garden patch to a working farm.