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Carla Emery

The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 10th Edition Paperback – July 1, 2008

by Carla Emery (Author)

4.7 342 ratings

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There is a newer edition of this item:

The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 50th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual for Living off the Land & Doing It Yourself
$18.63
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No home, whether in the country, the city, or somewhere in between, should be without this one-of-a-kind encyclopedia — the most complete source of information available about growing, processing, cooking, and preserving homegrown foods from the garden, orchard, field, or barnyard. For more than 30 years, people have relied on its practical, step-by-step advice on basic self-sufficiency skills such as how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, build a chicken coop, cook on a wood stove, and much, much more.

First written at the height of the 1960s back-to-the-land movement, the book has been continually revised, updated, and expanded, and has grown from a self-published, mimeographed document to an exhaustive reference of more than one million words, 2,000+ recipes, and over 1,500 mail order sources. Emery’s personal advice, reflections, and anecdotes ensure that this incredibly detailed, diverse reference is as enjoyable as it is useful.

Print length

928 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Sasquatch Books
Publication date

July 1, 2008
Dimensions

8.5 x 1.75 x 11 inches
ISBN-10

1570615535
ISBN-13

978-1570615535
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"If you're dreaming about moving "back to the land" someday, or if you're already there and want to live more self-sufficiently (wherever you may be) you'll want a copy of the ninth edition of The Encyclopedia of Country Living"
Organic Gardening

“For the suburbanite with just enough space for a little garden to the die-hard homesteaders and everyone in between, The Encyclopedia of Country Living makes for both fascinating reading and a truly essential reference source. You won’t find a more complete source of step-by-step information about growing, processing, cooking and preserving every kind of food—from the garden, the orchard, the field or the barnyard!”
Rodale Book Club

“This book is a monument to the coevolution of a person and an idea. As folk literature. . . this book should be shelved in your collection between the Foxfire books and Alicia Bay Laurel’s Living on Earth.”
Whole Earth catalog

“Urbanites will find the recipes and resources list. . . useful, the trivia interesting. . . and Emery’s personal reflections. . . compelling. Even readers with no plans to raise sheep, sell homemade cheese or plant millet will find this a fascinating cultural document.”
Publishers Weekly

"Packed with old wisdom as well as up-to-date websites and mail-order sources to make country living easier."
Country Almanac

“Although mainly a modern individualist’s resource on how to grow and prepare food, this work is much more. As one astonished browser acclaimed, ‘Is there anything this book doesn’t tell you how to do?’”
Library Journal

“Practical advice, invaluable information, and collected wisdom for folks and farmers in the country, city, and anywhere in between.”
Territorial Seed catalog

About the Author

Carla Emery grew up on a sheep ranch in Montana and was educated at Columbia University. In the early 1970s she settled on a farm in northern idaho, where she wrote the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Country Living. Originally produced on a mimeograph machine in her living room, this book launched its author to the forefront of the back-to-the-land movement. She remained a tireless advocate of self-sufficiency and environmental stewardship until her death in 2005.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sasquatch Books; 10th edition (July 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 928 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1570615535
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1570615535
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 1.75 x 11 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #908,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #565 in Gardening & Horticulture Reference (Books)
- #683 in Gardening Encyclopedias
- #1,104 in Antiques & Collectibles Encyclopedias

Customer Reviews:
4.7 342 ratings

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4.7 out of 5

342 global ratings

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A Christy

"The" Anchor Book for Doing It Yourself At Home

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2012

Verified Purchase

There's a good reason why older versions of this book are being sold at high prices for collectors...it's just awesome and always has been. Each update makes it a slightly bigger book too as more information is collected and carefully chosen for inclusion. This started as a labor of love by Carla Emery and though she has now passed away, it continues.

Like millions of others, I live by necessity in an urban/suburban environment where I was mostly at the mercy of the grocery stores, my local HOA rules and a stressed schedule with little time in it. When I moved to Virginia, I purposely built a home in a non-HOA location in an underdeveloped part of the city so I could have a shorter commute, no rules on my yard other than city rules and some control over my after-work time. I wanted to incorporate something of natural life into my own.

The problem was I was clueless as to how.

I bought oodles of books for every single aspect of what I wanted to do including gardening, canning (jar'ring/bottling for other countries), dehydrating, cooking from scratch and processing my own food from whole ingredients. That's just to start.

Yes, some of the other oodles of books did help but they were very specific in their reach. And I did spend a great deal on them. Then a friend recommended this book and I almost smacked myself for muddling through without it for so long. This book covers all that I wanted to do and then some. It also covers all those things I dream of being able to do when our city finally removes the bans on suburban/urban chickens (they will).

I can confidently say that this book improved my garden yields and variety produced, VASTLY improved the quality of my home canned items in both single and combination items, saved me tons of money because I can now part out my own meats (like whole fowl and quartered pigs) and create my own quick-cooking items from whole ingredients.

You don't need to own a huge country place to benefit, just be someone trying to do more wherever you are right now. I do have a small farmette in the country that I hope to retire to and I'll get even more use out of it there but it is well worth the shelf space even if I stayed right where I am.

Other books that book-end this anchor book for people with urban/suburban lots are: Square Foot Gardening and the Ball Book of Home Preserving. You don't need anything else so save the bucks I wasted on so many others and just go for those three. You'll get great value and very sound advice!

15 people found this helpful

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Michelle Murphy

Fast delivery!

Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2023

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The book came in great shape and so much faster than expected. Thank you.

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Tatiana

Great Resource...But So LARGE!!!!

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2010

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Hey!

If you use this book as an encyclopedia, looking up details of things you are interested in in that moment, this book is wonderful. If you want to sit down and read, from cover to cover, about all the details to country life, you better be one stubborn, fast reader, because this book is hard to get through, hard to force your self to continue reading when you're continuously jumping topics, and extremely long. Not to mention, it's unwieldy to sit and read. Pretty soon your arms will start hurting.

The sheer amount of information alone, however, makes this book more than worth the price. You can learn about anything country you ever wish to know, with just this one book. Is it the only country living book you'll ever need? It depends on your personal nature and how you learn. If you aren't a person who needs something visual to help you get started, this is the perfect book for you. You won't need any other. If you need pictures and step-by-step instructions, you're going to need more books. However, there are a lot of great ones out there to choose from, so don't despair.

I think this book is great. I don't regret buying it at all. However, be aware that it is large, without much graphic representation or how-to processes. But then, it's an encyclopedia. Not a how-to handbook. I recommend this book to anyone who is starting a new life in the country with little to no knowledge of how to make it in that self-same environment. You'll find whatever knowledge you're lacking somewhere in this book, not to mention a thorough discussion about other projects you may be thinking of trying in your new home.

Hope this helps! Have a wonderful day!

Luv ya,
Tashi :)

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2009

Verified Purchase

This is a great book for beginners like me. Don't expect to learn from this book EVERY little detail on how to do everything on a farm but do expect the basics on everything imaginable plus with many practical details. It goeas without saying, that you cannot learn practical skills from any book, including this one. So don't expect to become a master homesteader after reading this, or any other book. Books give you information and not skills which only come from practice. This is such a book. Books like this can provide you with valuable hints on how to do things right or right with less sweat. They save valuable time, effort and money by saving you making a number of errors in a trial-and-error type of learning process.

This book includes not just agricultural/animal husbandry information but also has information on things like beekeeping, use of tools, names/adresses of companies selling seeds, tools etc. There are numerous recepies so this book might even be used as a cookbook based on ingredients you can obtain from your own land.
Covers almost every aspect of country living I can think of from gardening to keeping animals, from how to deal with the side effects of bean eating (gases...) to how to deal with african bees if you live in an infested area (soapy water in sprayers). Also, unlike encyclopedias in general, this one reads very easily. The best book I've read so far (2009) on the subject of homesteading.

A general advice to money-savers: if you are not sure wether you want to have this book, get it from a library. Browse through it and then decide if you want to spend the money to have it on your desk. I strongly recommend this big book (it's more like a tome) for anybody interested in homesteading but its your taste and expectations that should be met.

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Top reviews from other countries

C. A. MILLER

EXCELLENT book to have for those who wish to be SELF RELIANT

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2012

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A truly EXCELLENT book to have for those who wish to be SELF RELIANT, and I have a feeling we will all need to be self-reliant the way things are going today. American based - they still have of many true 'homesteaders' over there whereas UK bureaucracy has destroyed nearly all of ours - the information still holds good in UK or Europe although you might need to convert imperial to metric and occasionally to look up some plant names to see what the European equivalent is. With the world facing an energy shortfall for the first time in mankind's entire history, and world economy teetering on the brink of melt-down as a result, Encyclopedia of Country Living enables you to see how to live healthily on very little money. Many older people, and even not so old folk like me, can remember when much of what is contained in the book was common practice in UK and Europe too - and 'within living' memory means within VERY recent history! A 'must have' reference book - and a book I hope Greece has bought for when their money runs out!

2 people found this helpful

Jill Brown

I am really happy with the book

Reviewed in Canada on September 13, 2014

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I was 10 years old when I first saw Carla Emery on the Mike Douglas Show on TV. She was promoting her book "The Encyclopedia of Country Living". I found that so interesting and I never forgot Carla Emery or her book all these 48 years later. I finally found her book on Amazon and immediately ordered it. I couldn't believe my luck or my memory. I am really happy with the book, it's everything I remembered from that long ago appearance on a TV show.

christ

Good reference book

Reviewed in Canada on March 10, 2014

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This book is really for heavy reader. There is not a lot of picture but there is tons and tons of information. I think it is a good book because it cover everything about country living from animal raising to gardening and preserving the harvest. It talks about growing grains, vegetable and fruits. Lots of good recipes in each chapter and also lots of good reference for more information on each topic. I highly recommend this as a reference book.

Amazon Customer

Good

Reviewed in Canada on August 19, 2018

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good

L. E. Debelser

Meh

Reviewed in Canada on October 28, 2012

Verified Purchase

As someone living on a ranch, I thought this would be a real go-to book. It's mildly interesting, but is really a collection of anecdotes and letters the author has received. There are some things, regarding preserving food, that are frankly wrong, and that case, dangerous. Entertaining to read, but not to rely on.

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