The Self-sufficient Life and How to Live It

The book has quite a bit going for it:

1. Beautifully made, illustrated and laid-out, this book is meant to last and be used readily and often. Typical Dorling Kindersley quality.

2. An eye-friendly typeface and bright, semi-gloss pages make this easy reading.

3. The shear breadth of the information here is outstanding. Packed into 306 letter-sized pages are the following chapters:
*The Meaning of Self-Sufficiency
*Food from the Garden
*Food from Animals
*Food from the Fields
*Food from the Wild
*In the Dairy
*In the Kitchen
*Brewing & Wine-making
*Energy & Waste
*Crafts & Skills
*Things You Need to Know

4. Good specifics on all the categories of info listed above. You should be able to get started on your way to being people of the soil. Need to know how to kill, gut, and prepare your cattle? It's in here. Got a hankering to get off the electrical grid altogether? Helpful windmill buying advice is here. Can't tell rye from barley? You will after reading this book.

5. A helpful list of contacts and companies that can get you started on your dream are included.

But there are issues amid all this helpful advice:

1. The book makes some references to US-specific qualifiers on info, but it is quintessentially British. Some of the very helpful info simply does not apply to American would-be farmers.

2. There's a lot of the "green" credo here. Some of it is a bit condescending to anyone who doesn't share the author's opinions of life outside the farm. How well the reader handles this is up to the reader.

3. While the book is certainly comprehensive, considering how complex a shift from urban to rural living can be, it could have gone even deeper. (I know that I still had questions.) The book probably could have been twice its length and would still be a bargain.

4. Much of the advice here comes from a lone methodology for approaching self-sufficiency. Despite the update, there are some more cutting edge permaculture methods that can be more satisfying than what we find in Seymour's book.

All in all, despite the cons, this is a fine primer on self-sufficiency. Anyone looking to escape the rat race could hardly do better than to pick up a copy of "The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It."


There are much better books than this   June 16, 2005
trader Mike
228 out of 260 found this review helpful

I was disapointed by this book. The book is written totally from the context of living in England. The author is a very poor communicator, he reminds me of an intellectual trying to explain how to farm with poetry and quotes from his vast knowledge of classic books.

I have been farming now for a few years and have some experience growing my own corn, vegatables etc.. I also raise catttle and horses. (I am also a licensed Vet in Texas) This author does not know what he is talking about on alot of animal husbandry issues and I see alot of ridiculous nonsense in his teachings of growing crops vegetables etc..

To make a long story short, if you live in the U.S. don't buy this book, it is really awful. There is a far better book...."The encyclopedia of country living" by Carla Emery


Terrific; virtually all-encompassing   August 8, 2003
Coolwetplace (Madison, Wisconsin United States)
125 out of 126 found this review helpful

This is a great book with great illustrations ... Simple yet detailled, practical yet principled. John Seymour has got a great good grasp of the ecological principles that SHOULD inform gardening and farming (what comes out must go back in).

In his other writings, Jonathan Seymour has a streak of anti-urbanism that I don't like--I don't share his view that cities are unnatural, diseased places. But he seems to have overcome it here with a description of urban gardens, limited-scale self-sufficiency and the like. This book lets you pick and choose; if you want to grow wheat on five acres, harrow, harvest, thresh and grind it yourself, that's fine. On the other hand, if you live on a half-acre lot and just want to set up a backyard garden, a compost pile and maybe a beehive, this book will also show you how.


Duplication   October 16, 2005
Big Italian (Alabama)
59 out of 59 found this review helpful

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.


Self-Dufficient Life and How To Live It   September 20, 2003
Paul Burton (San Francisco, CA United States)
38 out of 46 found this review helpful

I came across this book in the library. Great pictures. Author John Seymour did his homework, he must have read "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker - lots of those great calendar pictures that humans universally love. Farmland and field, birdie and squirrel, makes you feel good; all warm and fuzzy inside.

Mr. Seymour is far too politicaly correct for my taste. He seems to enjoy lecturing us on how wonderful his self-sufficient life is and how deficient a life we city-dwellers lead.

This book will teach you how to kill and gut your chicken, and if you can handle that, read on to learn how to kill and dress your lamb. It is much easier learning how to make your own soap - that is far easier, did you know, than coming across that bottle of maple syrup. (That's one unintended message that comes across in this book: Thank God for the modern city-life and the supermarket).

There is information on Dyeing and Weaving, Curing and Tanning, Making Bricks and Tiles. There is information on 101 things we take for granted in our everday city-world. It is thus my kind of book, and the book for every Renaissance man and woman.

Seymour's work is a signature type; a bible that belongs in every home. It is pleasing to page through, and informative in a way that connects us to the majesty of life. As a practical matter, this would be the book to have when the lights go out and civilization needs to reinvent maple syrup.

It is a dreamers book, and a book for those interested in how their ancestor lived. Finally, this is a book we who take much for granted, for the P.C. lecture that takes is the one showing how truly dependent modern-man has become.