Reviews

The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley

November 30, 2010
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‘We are all natural navigators.’ That’s the premise of this book: it’s even written in large, elegant letters on the back cover. It’s true, too, but without a bit of background information there’s not much we can do to navigate beyond the local areas we all know well. The idea of this chunky, rather nicely-designed [...]

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The Treehouse Diaries by Nick Weston

August 2, 2010
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I wasn’t going to buy this book. I saw it in Waterstones, picked it up, made a note and then put it down again, intending to buy it when (and if) it came out in paperback. Well, best laid plans and all that… the next day I went back and bought it, and I’ve spent the last couple of weeks indulging fantasies of countryside escapes.

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Dig on for Victory by C H Middleton

April 2, 2010
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First published in 1945, it is a week-by-week guide of what you need to be doing and when in your vegetable garden. It may be over 60 years old now, but the unfussy and easily followed advice it contains remains relevant today.

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Stitch n Bitch by Debbie Stoller

February 12, 2010
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Stitch n Bitch is an excellent beginners’ guide to knitting, taking you through the process of identifying needles, choosing wool and casting on, all the way through to binding off your finished garment.

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Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps

February 3, 2010
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Chicken food is fairly inexpensive, but if you want to be truly self-sufficient you should be making best use of your kitchen scraps to feed your hens. This book, written during the war, tells you how to do exactly that.

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Victory Cookbook by Marguerite Patten

January 15, 2010
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This fascinating book is both a history of how the population coped with meagre wartime rations, but also a useful reference of low-cost, simple recipes that use few ingredients.

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Tender by Nigel Slater

January 9, 2010
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Nigel Slater’s Tender is an homage to growing your own vegetables in the garden and, when harvested, using them to make tasty, simple meals in your own kitchen. It is beautifully produced and even more beautifully written.

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Cheese Making by Rita Ash: Review

November 23, 2009
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One of the projects we’re going to start in the new year (or before the end of December this year if we get time) is making our own cheese. We’ve bought a press, which we can also use for cider making next autumn and, apart from a goat or cow, that’s pretty much all the [...]

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The Bike Book by Haynes: review

September 30, 2009
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If your bike is a key part of your drive to be more self-sufficient but you haven’t got a clue how to go about fixing it when things go wrong, you need to add this book to your reading list.

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Grandma's Remedies by Cherry Chappell

April 5, 2009

Grandmas remediesIf you’re serious about being self-sufficient, you really need a way to remedy simple illnesses and ailments, rather than reaching for commercial drugs in the medicine cabinet. That’s where this fascinating book can help.

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