Customer Reviews

The Self Sufficient-ish Bible: An Eco-living Guide for the 21st Century

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book gives great information on a broad variety of topics from gardening to self sufficiency on the homestead. You can glean information on crop rotation, what vegetables work well with what kinds of herbs not to mention the information on how to make cleaning supplies for yourself and your clothes and home. VERY interesting and has useful addresses, books, and sites in the back!

Hey!

First things first, I'll give you my warning: This book was written for people living in England. Not America or any other country. However, the fount of infomation still applies...for the most part. However, there are a few things I still must do research in to figure out about (ex. What in the world are courgettes and marrows?) and a few things that simply don't apply outside England (ex. Planting and Harvesting Calendar and the supplies section).

But there WERE a great many cool projects and some really wonderful information on how to be as green as possible when circumstances deam you can't be completely self-sufficient. Because, let's face it, the majority of us simply can't leave the modern lifestyle behind completely. Nor do many of us want to. This book is great for suggesting how to live a self sufficient-ish lifestyle. Not quite living in the boonies, with no money, no job, and no contact with the outside world, but not completely enmeshed in the modern wasteful lifestyle, either. Sure, I don't agree with every word in here, and I don't know that I'd be completely against living in the boonies with no money, no job, and no contact with the outside world. But this book gives me a way to be self-sufficient-ish until I can do something like that, which is a wonderful thing.

Hope this helps all of you potential customers, and happy reading!

Luv ya,
Tashi :)

An absolutely amazing book packed full of useful information. It covers all areas of self sufficiency and in a lot of detail. It covers areas you wouldn't even consider yourself so its a really worthwhile investment. I got it for Christmas and had it read by boxing day, I just couldn't put it down. Its written beautifully so you never get bored or feel over faced by it and has lots of little tit bits of additional information to make it an even more enjoyable read. 2 massive thumbs up to the Hamiltons, I'll definitely be buying any future works of theirs.

Excellent book, covers so many topics. You will refer back to various parts many times over the course of the year. We have already changed a few of our habits after suggestions made in this book. Very highly recommended indeed!

I got this out of the library to check it out and wow this is a must buy book! I LOVE the way it is presented - fantastic graphic design work throughout which makes the book even more attractive. The content is fantastic. There are some real gems in there that I haven't found in any other book such as the writers own personal remedies and recipes and tidbits. I love it!

The only thing I was a little disappointed with but then you can't expect every book to cover everything - they were purely dealing on the eco side of things but didn't really deal with the chemical side of things that hurt your health. So some things they had on their lists of recommendations are not safe. For example they recommend recycled paper things - however I have been recently reading that recycled paper is even worse than normal paper for BPA's (Bisphenol A's) because newspaper ink is high in BPAs it means when it is all recycled together it's an even stronger dose of BPA in your toilet paper or whatever which gets into your body and causes all sorts of horrible things. They had a project using newspaper to make seedling planters which is a fantastic idea but I guess knowing about the BPA in the ink... which would go in the soil your plant is growing in and you will eventually eat... I probably wouldn't do that and stick to something like ceramic/stainless steel or glass to be safe as they don't leach chemicals.
Also in one activity involved using PVC piping and PVC is the most dangerous plastic on the planet and we're meant to be eliminating that as much as possible from our environment.

That is the only angle really that I felt missing but I'm willing to overlook that because I have read other books and know about it. And besides that is only a fairly small part of it. This book is such a wealth of fantastic ideas and information that I can't wait to get my own copy and try many of the recipes/ideas etc in there.