Here’s a list of books that are [mostly] related to this blog and its topics. The ones with stars are my favorites. If I reviewed the book, the link is to my review. If I haven’t, it links to Amazon.com so you can check out their user reviews. Click here to browse all my book reviews on a single page.
Books I’ve read:
Cooking
* Bittman, Mark. How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
Denzer, Kiko. Build Your Own Earth Oven
* Fallon, Sally. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
Green, Aliza. Starting with Ingredients
* Hertzberg, Jeff. Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Revolution Continues With Whole Grains, Fruits, and Vegetables
* Katz, Sandor Ellix. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods
* Katz, Sandor Ellix. The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World
McLagan, Jennifer. Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore
Mclagan, Jennifer. Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes
Nabhan, Gary Paul. Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods
Wason, Betty. The art of German Cooking
Gardening/permaculture
* Bubel, Mike & Nancy. Root Cellaring: The simple no-processing way to store fruits and vegetables
Coleman, Eliot. The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses
* Coleman, Eliot. Four-Season Harvest: Organic vegetables from your home garden all year long
Deppe, Carol. The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times
* Ellis, Barbara. The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control
Jacke, Dave and Toensmeier, Eric. Edible Forest Gardens
Hamilton, Lisa. Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness
* Hemenway, Toby. Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
Madigan, Carleen. The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!
Rice, Graham. all-in-one garden: grow vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers in the same space (great beginners’ book)
Riotte, Louise. Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening
Salatin, Joel. Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal
Toensmeier, Eric. Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles
Architecture
Snell, Clarke and Callahan, Tim. Building Green: A complete how-to guide to alternative building methods
Parenting
Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
* Payne, Kim John. Simplicity Parenting
A bit of everything
* Hodgkinson, Tom. The Freedom Manifesto
Kellogg, Scott and Pettigrew, Stacy. Toolbox for Sustainable City Living
Kingsolver, Barbara. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
* Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
* Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Books I’d like to read:
At this point, I think it would be easier to just direct you to my Amazon.com wishlist, which I groom regularly to keep track of books I’d like to read.
Last updated April 8, 2013.
Stacking Functions Garden 
February 20, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Okay, I’m going to try not to come on too strong here, but I think you are my “ideas and interests” doppelganger! Just found your blog after thinking about, reading and googling new ideas in homemaking/domestic arts and we have a lot in common. I’m a mom of 3 in DC, freelance writer, idea lover, gardener, raw milker, blah, blah, blah – you get the idea. And I’d love to pass along a couple of reading recs that have rocked my world lately:
Radical Homemaking – Shannon Hayes
Urban Farm magazine
And just found all of Irma Gross’ old works about Home Management and the American Frugal Housewife on Amazon – can’t wait to read a little history.
And here is a link to raw milk in your area:
http://www.westonaprice.org/chapters/index.php#mn
Poke around http://www.realmilk.com to calm your fears about the FDA-promoted risks.
Nice to find you and let’s keep the conversation going!
=), melanie
February 21, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Thanks for the nice note, Melanie. I already read some of the old Frugal Housewife stuff and found it very interesting. AND I was just telling Adam the other day that I want to start getting the urban farm magazine! Stay in touch…
March 19, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Fer! Salt: A World History is amazing!
I’m so glad I found your reading list – now I’ll have an actual list when I’m overwhelmed at the bookstore. I love your blog!
April 17, 2013 at 10:54 pm
Two book recommendations for you:
Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson
It’s an encyclopedia of housekeeping – her point of view is not the same as yours (it’s not written from a sustainability perspective), but she provides information that’s relevant to sustainable living (such as recipes for homemade cleaning products), and a lot of other practical information that’s in danger of disappearing from common knowledge (like how to wax furniture). There’s no other book like it.
How Buildings Learn – Stuart Brand
The book criticizes mainstream architecture for undervaluing the interaction between a building and its occupants and tries to identify the features of buildings that make them adaptable for different uses and responsive to the needs of the humans who use them. I think you would find his perspective simpatico.
April 18, 2013 at 7:35 am
Thanks!