The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living Reviews
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living
- ISBN13: 9781592579457
- Condition: New
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How to be green, save green, grow greens-even turn a thumb green.
Self-sufficient living can mean a healthier life, a way to protect the earth, or a way to save money. This guide helps readers find their perfect degree of self reliance in the areas of food, shelter, energy, clothing, and more. For both the urban and rural dweller, it covers gardening, cooking from scratch, preserving food, raising livestock, keeping chickens, generating or supplementing energy, essential tools and equipment, foraging for wild foods, hunting, fishing, and trapping.
•Saving money in today’s economy and self-sufficiency go hand-in-hand
•For the growing number of eco-friends considering self-sufficiency
•Existing books focus on either rural or urban self-sufficiency, but this covers both
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(out of 5 reviews)
List Price: $ 18.95
Price: $ 9.93
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Review by Jared Yates for The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living
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I would have to say that this is one of the best books that I’ve read. It is a great eye-opener about how unsustainable much of our culture is, and I’ve purchased multiple copies to spread around to friends. The first parts give a great argument for why we should understand more about the not-obvious and thus unpaid cost of the way that many of us live. The second and third halves of the book get into the high points of topics of interest to a modern homesteader (someone who wants to live in a more sustainable way), but since it isn’t a multi-volume encyclopedia set 8000 pages long, it doesn’t get into the most minute details. For instance, if you have never known anyone with chickens and don’t know anything about chickens, this book gives you enough of an overview to decide if you should buy Gail’s chicken books (to get the rest of the story), or if chickens just aren’t for you. This concept repeats for the rest of the topics. I think of the latter part of this book as a launching pad in that regard- about home cheese making, gardening, livestock, etc (and thus quite useful for the average suburbanite).
I do have two complaints, and one is the title. This issue alone is almost enough to cost a star in my rating. How am I supposed to give someone a copy of this book without implying that he is a complete idiot? Furthermore, perhaps the strongest aspect of this book is that Jerome puts sustainable living in the context of right now. I’ve read it in the spring of 2010 and it is very truly up to date. Perhaps a more accurate title would be “Sustainable living for the 21st Century,” “Things your great-grandparents forgot to tell you,” or “the modern homesteader.” Perhaps those titles were already taken. He makes such a fantastic argument about why the self-sufficient concept of the 1800s is out of place in our world today, but yet I think that the title carries the baggage of that old-school frontiersman. I would have probably not picked this book up off of the shelf based on the title, and unfortunately that may keep someone else from reading what I would consider to be required reading for all people. My second and much more minor complaint is that the last chapter was pretty cheesy. My advice is to skip that one.
Review by M. A. Kohn for The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living
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Mr. Belanger, you’re my hero.
I’ve been a Countryside subscriber for years and just had to get this book. I’ve read it, my wife is reading it, and throughout the book we realized that we already were 50% of the way to being self-sufficient. This book inspired us to make the final push and move out to our cabin on 20 acres near Prentice, WI (ironically, a stones throw from Countryside’s HQ)
Lots of good, practical advice. Mr. Belanger doesn’t pretend to take the stance that this book will answer all of your questions or encompass all that there is to know…simply because that is impossible. What he does do is give you all the tools you need and references, links, addresses and ideas to get you going in the direction of your choice. His recommendations on books to read are dead-on. On his recommendation, I picked up “Craft of the Country Cook” by Pat Katz and it is an amazing volume of information and absolutely all that Mr. Belanger says it is, plus more.
Tonight I stuffed sausages, making bratwurst from scratch for the very first time. Yesterday, our bees arrived for our new hives, and we got free grapevine cuttings for various wine varieties from the University of Wisconsin research station at Hancock. Over the weekend we picked up a propane chest freezer (free) and a wringer washer (also free, will convert to gasoline power).
Although I’ve read Countryside for years, it was this book that gave us the inspiration to make that final push. Thank you, Mr. Belanger.
Review by B. Schotter for The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living
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This is a great book for giving ideas to getting started in self-sufficient living, and just some general ideas of how to change your day to day living to help in living a simpler life. My only grip would be some of the commits are a little leftist but I just ignore them. I would recommend this book to anyone.
Review by Rosemarie A.Peal for The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living
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This is a very good book that helps you along to being self sufficient. I saw this reviewed in Countryside magazine and it sounded very interesting. I will be moving to the country soon and will be using this as a guide. Read this book as a guide to help you along the way.
Review by M. Spillers for The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living
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Actually, I just received this much anticipated book, yesterday. The moment I received it, I began reading it. From the start I was disappointed but I kept reading thinking that at some point I would get into some substance. Well, It hasn’t happened yet. Jerome Belanger only tells you why it would be a good idea to become more self sufficient but never really how to do it. So, if your looking for the why then this is the book for you but if your like me and you have already gotten to the why and are ready for the how, keep looking!
P.S.
In all fairness he does give some ideas on things to implement but not enough in my opinion.