Homesteading books

True stories about homesteading or wilderness living I love to read about especially if they are about women and their families in present day times. Every summer it seems as though I read Anne LaBastille's Woodsoman books..there is 4 of them I believe and very interesting as she made her home in the wilderness of the Adirondack's in NY state here. Also, another good read which I read at least once a year is Arctic Homestead by Norma Cobb. Her husband and her moved their family to Alaska in the 1970's and she was actually the last women to actually received free homesteading land at the time. Talk about trials with a family !! My all time favorite for homesteading advice is Country Women (book not the magazine) by Jeanee Tetrault and Sherry Thomas. Think it is probably out of print but a really good book on starting a homestead. Hope this helps with your reading list.!!

These are not so much how-to books such as Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of Country Living as they are the stories of people who lived simple and sustainable lives. In parentheses I’ve noted the area they write about.

Wilderness Wife by Bradford and Vena Angier (British Columbia, Canada)
We Chose the Country by Herbert Jacobs (Wisconsin, USA)
White Goats and Black Bees by Donald Grant (Ireland)
A Country Wife by Lucy Pinney (Dorset, England)
A Shepherd's Watch by David Kennard (North Devon, England)
Bean Blossom Dreams by Sallyann J. Murphey (Indiana, USA)
A Place in the Woods by Helen Hoover (Minnesota, USA)
The Gift of the Deer by Helen Hoover (Minnesota, USA)
O Come Ye Back to Ireland: Our First Year in County Clare by Niall Williams and Christine Breen (Ireland)
When Summer’s in the Meadow by Niall Williams and Christine Breen (Ireland)
We Took to the Woods by Louise Dickinson Rich (Maine, USA)
Happy the Land by Louise Dickenson Rich (Maine, USA)
My Neck of the Woods by Louise Dickinson Rich (Maine, USA)
The Final Frontiersman by James Campbell (Alaska)

If you're looking for "How To" books, I'd recommend those for sale at Backwoods Home Books.

If you are looking for stories about homesteading people, I'd recommend Starting Over by Jackie Clay.

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This is the government the Founding Fathers warned us about.....

I'm not good at remembering the names/authors of good books when I read them, but one book that stands out is THE GOOD LIFE by Scott and Helen Nearing...one of my favorites.

I really like these:

No Time on My Hands It's actually an autobiography of a famous quilter. It's kind of obscure, I got it from my aunt. She had it because my grandfather is actually mentioned in it. I think there's even a picture of him as a boy with his family lined up walking to church. It's amazingly well written, realistic and just.... well, I can't recommend it enough. It's probably one of my all time favorites.

Diary of an American Boy is another good one. It's also an autobiography, being a young boy's diary. It takes place in the early 19th century. The boy is a carpenter's son and the book talks about them setting up a saw mill. It's just great. Wonderful for kids as well. I wish it were longer though.

I also like the little house books as well.

Lastly, I'd recommend Cache Lake Country. It's less homesteading and more... mountain man meets Walden. My dad had a copy and I read it when I was about 12. It's been one of my favorites ever since.

I love this book and have a copy on a shelf two feet from me!! Reading this book literally changed our lives 5 years ago and got us started on our current path
I recommend it to just about everyone but I ( 'til now) have never actually met anyone else who has actually read it

Wow, so much to read! I've ordered 'Farmer's Boy' and 'White goats and black bees' as a start.
Recently I enjoyed 'Up the Yukon without a paddle' - the story of an Englishman and his wife who decided to make a canoe trip up the Yukon. Scott Nearing I found hard to read even though they obviously inspired many people.
Starting Over by Jackie Clay sounds good. My shopping list will tide me over a good few Christmases at this rate!

If you aren't on it already, you might checkout paperbackswap.com. There you can swap books with members and it's a whole lot cheaper than buying them new or often, even used from Amazon.

Ten acres enough is a good early American homesteading handbook. Google books has it and Dover publications sells a copy.
I second the Ralph Moody series
5 acres and Independence
Back to Basics
Eric Sloane has some neat books.
Rodale and Storey books are awesome.
If I think of others later I'll write them down.
-Dairymaid

Reads this at Christmastime. The Melodian, by Glendon Swarthout. LOVE IT. Read it every christmas since 1974. Also, THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE< by Goude.Thats not spelled right. 1947. That big thin how to book, written by the Robinsons in the NE nin around the same time 47

I have many of the books previously mentioned. Started buying them in the 70's when the back-to-the-land was in full force.

Now, I'm using the Internet to add to my book collection, with emphasis on anything prior to WWII. And especially anything prior to 1900. For example, I've found this site. http://www.foodtimeline.org/index.html specifically here http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpioneer.html and this one http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/...l/project.html

There are quite a few on-line book collections, free to download, on many subjects. A few, I've copied to a word processing program before printing. Although slow, depending on the book, it's worth the time, in order to reduce paper/ink costs. One small book was 66 pages long. By bringing it into a word processor, I was able to reduce the pages to 14 before printing it out. That one had a lot of wasted space on the pages. Reducing the size of large pictures saves ink. I always print the cover/title page directly from the site in order to document the source.

Lee