{Be sure to check out the web links and downloads pages - and add your favorites! Pops}


Hello all !


For many of us,the first stage to prepare for Peak Oil is to buy and read books..Personnally i don't have a lot of money,but enough to buy some ! At least,i/you will learn something usefull,even i/you can't use it because of my/your situation !

What about sharing what is in your personal library !? Maybe it will give some ideas for thoses who don't really know where to begin if we put what each of us have ..

So let's begin ,
here is my list of books (even if it's not a lot ) :

The Hand Sculpted House : A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage

The 50$ & Up Underground House Book (7th edition)

Permaculture : A Designer Manual

Small Scale Aquaculture

How to Grow More Vegetables : And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine

Crisis Preparedness Handbook : A Complete Guide to Home Storage and Physical Survival

Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival

Windpower Workshop

I didn't received them all,3 of them are on the way..might be a good thing to buy them NOW,while shipping and cost are low !

Schneider
French-Canadian[hr]

You can download many older books on homesteading and agriculture FREE from the Soil and Health Library. You should read this copyright notice first before entering the library.

The library includes sections on:

Radical / holistic agriculture
Homesteading
Social Criticism

The Homesteading section has two classics recommended by posters on this site:

Freed, Dolly.
Possum Living: How To Live Well Without A Job and With (almost) No Money.
Recommended by jpatti (and me)

Logsdon, Gene.
Small-Scale Grain Raising
Recommended by Pops.

Possum Living is one of my favorites. It's homesteading with an attitude, written by a teenage girl living a Huck Finn life with her father.

Schneider your list almost mirrors the books I have been adding to my "to get list". No time like the present, shipping will go up and avail. will go down.
bart, thank you for the link.... much reading to do

Well,this is a good start !

bart
Thx a lot for the links bart ! I'll begin to read Possum Living: How To Live Well Without A Job and With (almost) No Money..now ! (got the link from the automailer)..

Tip of the day : for thoses who think theses ebooks are wonderfull..PRINT THEM ! Who know if in the future we will be able to do it (power grid down or printer cartriges unavailable)...

Northtek
Theses books are a wealth of tips and infos ! Oh,by the way,if you try to get The 50$ & Up Underground House Book (7th edition) ,do it at http://www.undergroundhousing.com (the Mike Oehler website)! Amazon don't seem to be able to get this one ...

To everybody
You might have notice,my books are mostly for farming and housing..but i ALSO try to learn how to live in the wilderness (see Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival ) !

Always a good thing to have a backup plan ..

Schneider
French-Canadian

I was just thinking a few days ago we needed a book post.

I have several first aid books including wilderness aid, cpr, first responder, etc. I want to add something on natural remedies.

Making the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook by James T Stevens

How to Develop a Low Cost Family Food Storage System by Anita Evangelista

Five Acres and Independence: A Handbook for Small Farm Management by MG Kains

How to Grow Vegetables and Fruits by the Organic Method by the Rodale Press

Ball Blue Book

We have several solar power and gunsmithing/weapons books too. They are my husband's and father's and I have no idea which they consider must have. I also have several general gardening books and cooking from scratch cookbooks.

My focus is obviously food lol.

There are few books on my must get list, including the Carla Emory books and Reader's Digest Back to Basics.

Lori

I bought a book on butchery. You would not believe the funny looks that I got at the office!

HAhahAHAHahAa
Lol,why..WHY i'm not so surprised about it !?

It's not popular because killing and butchering an animal remind us something most people today DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER : we are mortal !

Most people today would not eat so much meat if they would have to kill in order to have their share of meat..in a way,it remind me we are eating 5 times more meat than 100 years before !

I purchased e-books on how to build solar ovens from a guy who sells them on eBay and I'm really happy w/ the information.

Do a search for "Solar Oven" on eBay.
Your looking for the books....

Sunshine to Dollars
and
Surviving the Blackout of 2003.

Great information on how to build solar stuff using inexpensive materials. Gave me some GREAT idea's!! His handle on eBay is "knowledgepublications".

Trip

Hey TripleGemini !
Hmm,could you give us more infos on what is in the Sunshine to Dollars ?

Owning/running a library with such inventory as this will be a GREAT bartering tool for you and your relocalized community!

Think about running "how-to" classes there, too. Then many can learn needed facts and skills at the same time.

Me--as of right now, if they like sci-fi, wanna read about peak oil, global warming, climate change, or population control, or are National Geographic lovers, they're gonna be flocking to my place! (I do have a book of natural remedies, that is, if we can FIND them....)

savethehumans : Yes,indeed owning/running a library with such inventory as this will be a GREAT bartering tool !

---------------

I got the book "Sunshine to dollars" TripleGemini talked about !

I'll post a review soon,but just want to warn people who want to buy it : BUY THE EBOOK !!! Paying 19.95$+ 10$US for the shipping outside US is kinda costy for a booklet who didn't have a hardcover and s printed on a mere printer !

To be short,i could have printed it on my old (color) printer and get the same quality for 15$ US less ..

----------------

Got news books :

The self-sufficient life and how to live it : The complete back-to-basics guide from John Seymour (by the way,he's dead latelly )..

Great book ! Tons of infos how to grow food and raise animals and many others thing about selft-sufficiency...

The forgotten Arts & Crafts from John Seymour..

Hmm,i think it's a good book for someone wondering how people were doing before us..Could give to some,many good ideas but i don't think it will help me to survive peak oil..But great book to read in rainning days with a open wood stove at the corner !

When Technology fails : A manual for self-reliance & Planetary survival from Matthew Stein..

Just have skim the pages but i can already say you may want to buy references books talked inside this one and can say it only show the BASICS of the subjects inside the book..But it's a good reference of what you need to know and on witch books to buy after reading it ! Seem to be a really good start for thoses asking themself about where to begin ...


Schneider
French-Canadian

Schneider, are you aware of any books or movements in the Francophone world?

A few additions:

The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure by Joseph Jenkins
The Earthship books (See www.earthship.com)
Serious Straw Bale: A Home Construction Guide for All Climates by Paul Lacinski
Real Goods Solar Living Sourcebook
Where there is no Doctor by David Werner
Where there is no Dentist by Dickson, Murray
Ditch Medicine by Hugh Coffee
Tactical Medicine by Ian McDevitt
Putting Food By by Janet C. Greene
Deerskins Into Buckskins: How To Tan With Brains, Soap, Or Eggs by Matt Richards
Blue mountain buckskin: A working manual, dryscrape, brain-tan by Jim Riggs
Homesteading: a Practical Guide to Living Off the Land by Patricia Crawford
New Independent Home by Michael Potts
Smoking Salmon and Trout Plus Pickling, Salting, Sausaging and Care by S Whelan


One book I recommend avoiding like the plague: Keeping Food Fresh by Claude Aubert . It's a lovely work of fiction, but the techniques he describes don't work at all! (Food that is supposed to keep all winter, rots in three days.) Learned by sad personal experience.

One of the more eclectic books I have is one that gives like 100 uses for baking soda! Crazy--but I bet it ends up coming in handy!

Got a complete collection of Shakespeare plays--we could read/perform them for entertainment! (Hey, FDR's family did, and it worked for them!) Got a book about presidential campaigns, if anyone's in the mood for an historical laugh! Bibles, atlases, an almanac....

Really, though, there's this used book store in our downtown square that has books on every conceivable topic. If we can keep the panicking masses from burning it down, it'd make a GREAT social/educational center! And it's in a 100+ year old building, back when they knew how to build places that LAST.

I really love my little city...too bad it's SW HQ for FEMA, or it'd be a great place to live post-peak....

Agree with all of the above plus:

The Foxfire Books I think there's ten of them, all with detailed info about how to build a log cabin, how to make pottery, mountain medicine, how to make a banjo, how to build a loom.

Earth Ovens by Kiko Denzer You can build an earth oven from clay and sand and bake your own bread and pizza. I plan to start on one next week. To hell with PO, I just want some real bread!

That's one I'd like to get. Those little houses are so neat.