For the Love of Books & Friends

Some wonderful books have made their way into my life recently and several of them because of friends.  I feel the need to share some of their wealth: 

Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening by J.I. Rodale – An edition from 1975.  This beauty was a gift from Bernadette, a class-mate from “The Artist’s Way” class I’ve been taking.  It’s an amazing book, truly an encyclopedia covering everything imaginable in an alphabetic format.  Everything from insect control to carbon-nitrogen ratio to beekeeping to storage and everything in between is covered in this thick, lovely book.

Complete Book of Composting also by J.I. Rodale and also a gift from Bernadette.  An entire 1,007 pages dedicated solely to the science and practice of composting.  I’ve just started leafing through the book, but let me just say, wow.  Truly amazing (like most everything Rodale did) and something I’m so very pleased to have in my library.  I can tell this will be a well used and often referred to source in this gardener’s home.

Making the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook by James Talmage Stevens.  The lovely Carla sent this to me some months back.  It’s an amazing book and if you can get your hands on a copy, I’d recommend having it in your library.  The book covers: gardening, food storage, honey, an entire chapter on sourdough, sprouting, cleaning producing, wild game, medical supplies, and much, much more.  Lots of great information including charts with guidelines for storage based on family size, etc. 

These I’ve borrowed from the library:

The Year of the Flood: A Novel by Margaret Atwood.  I’ve just started reading this and so I’m reserving judgment on it for now.  I have a real love / hate relationship with the author.  Some of her books are some of my most favorite and others are a struggle to finish, but I always read them until the end.  I suppose that alone is a testament to her writing prowess.

Garden Anywhere by Alys Fowler.  I picked the pick up off the new bookshelf immediately.  The book covers container gardening, herb gardens, worm composting, pruning, seed starting, etc.  There are many small project instructions including building window boxes and worm bins to name just a few.  I picked it up because I could always use a few more tips when it comes to container gardening most especially.  It’s an awesome book and one I’m going to buy for my personal reference library.

The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (Transition Guides) by Rob Hopkins.  I picked this up to help give me some ideas on helping my community.  I’m not sure I can “buy” into everything that Hopkins espouses, but there’s a ton of good information in this book and ways to put the information and knowledge into action.  As with everything, I’ll take what I need and leave the rest behind. 

Ok, so what are you reading that I should check out?