Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition

I bought this book based off the recommendation of a You Tube video. This book was in a list of book recommended. I bought this first because of the high reviews and it is something that I am interested in. If you are looking to buy a book and become an expert in all or any of the topics that this book covers, this book is not for you. This book is not small, has plenty of pictures, and does cover the topics quite nicely. This book looks to give you a general idea about a lot of topics that any one of them could be a series of books on their own. This book did give a decent amount of information on each topic that gave you a general idea on how something was done and allowed you to make a decision if it was something you wanted to research further. As I read through the book I found myself think I would love to learn to do that, and that, and that. I come to the realization that if for some reason all of our modern conveniences were taken away, no one person would be able to master all the things that would need to be done in a community. After reading through this it started to make since to me why people chose a profession and stayed in that profession. Generation after generation in the same family would take up the family trade and keep learning and expanding the trade. As said before, if you are getting this book in hopes of becoming an expert in traditional basic skill you will be disappointed. I took this book at what it was and now I am interested in even more things than I was before.

Back to Basics is a wonderful manual on how to live a life free of all the modern distractions. How many people want to return to a time when things were different: people felt good about working hard, living in close connection the the seasons, and worked with the environment instead of trying to conquer it? How many people have tried this way of life, but failed? Here, in one simple book, you have all the information you need to succeed. The book includes how to choose land, build a house and out buildings, create energy, raise your own food, preserve foodstuff, crafts for the home, and a section on old time recreation. The writing is clear and instructions easy to follow. There are plenty of pictures to help you create your own bit of paradise. As a child, I had an earlier version of this book. It was a big, heavy, hard cover book and I spent hours mulling over how different life use to be like. Life was so much more work, but in many ways easier. This book nurtured the simple thought that we could recapture some if not all of that life. Maybe if we adopted some of these ideas then we could find a place for ourselves in the world. If I had to choose just one, I would say this is the most influential book of my youth. So, you can imagine my surprise to see this available for my Kindle. I thought, "This is a book about getting away from technology and living a life full of pre-electronic traditions. What's it doing as an e-book?" My curiosity peaked, I downloaded this and started reading. I have to say, I LOVE it! The book takes full advantage of the Kindle format. The pictures, and there are a lot of pictures, show up clearly on my Kindle 3. They are in colour when I read the book on my PC. Although, the huge number of pictures makes this book really slow to download. The index is interactive, the sections are easily navigable via the 5-way controller.

I think you could pretty much live "off the grid" with this one book. If you ever really think about how you and your family could live self-sufficiently in the event you moved to that cabin, or if you think beyond 72 hour kits for emergency preparedness, this book should be in your home library. If you really needed to be self-sufficient for months or even years this book would keep you alive. The book is in six parts: Part One: Land and buildings. Building with logs, adobe, and stone. Part Two: Energy - From windmills to do-it-yourself water heaters and methane digesters. Part Three: Gardens and Livestock - The usual, plus things like bee-keeping,butchering, and shearing. Part Four: Preserving, curing, and storing the harvest. LOTS of info on cheesemaking, a good bit about smoking and preserving meats, and even maple sugaring. Part Five: Skills and Crafts - Natural dyes and dyeing, carding and spinning, weaving (but not building the loom), rug-making, curing leather, making shoes, furniture making, metalworking, soapmaking and natural cleansers, candle making,and basket weaving. Part Six: Recreation - traditional games and holiday crafts, but also orienteering, foraging and snare-making,a little bit on raft making, and basic first aid. I hope this gives you enough information to see if the book is really what you want. This isn't a "cutesy" Country Mama kind of book. This is the real thing. The instructions are concise. The illustrations are mostly drawings (good ones). You'd probably have some trial and error following them, but you'd have enough to get started and to know what NOT to do. I highly recommend the book, if only for peace of mind, knowing you could take care of yourself and your loved ones.

This book has a wealth of knowledge. I have always dreamed of building my own house, laying the rocks on my own stone fireplace and other such homesteading ideologies. This book delivers the know-how behind the concepts I have imagined in my mind. Now, if I could just get motivated to get out there and build. lol. When the time comes, it will be a good guide book. The hardback version of this book was well worth the price as it is more durable (of course). It has good photos throughout. I have enjoy reading it. The hands-on illustrations could be a little more descriptive but all-in-all it's pretty well-written. The shape of the book is a little odd. It doesn't fit in my bookshelf well as the spine is short but the book itself is long and tends to stick out further than most books. It works best if I lay it down & stack other small books atop. Not really much of a complaint, but I thought I'd mention it anyways.

If you are interested in simple living, whether to lower your environmental impact, prepeare for an uncertain future, have a healthier diet and lifestyle, or just enjoy the lost arts of the past, this is your book. My grandfather was a farmer, and a lot of rural southern traditions have been kept alive in my family: hunting, fishing, gardening, and keeping chickens, for instance. So I had fairly extensive knowledge on some subjects, but total ignorance of others. If you have some knowledge and experience, this book will help you fill in the blanks. Good, solid, basic information on wood stoves, digging wells, building with log or adobe, storing and preserving food, and much more. If you're totally new to self-sufficient living, this is a great place to start also! It will introduce you to all of the skills, techniques, and issues surrounding land, forestry, gardening, livestock, building, and energy. Eventually you may want more in-depth books on specific topics, but nowhere will you find a guide to self-sufficient living as comprehensive and easy to use. The book is profusely illustrated, which is very useful. (There's nothing I hate more than an instruction manual or how-to guide that tries to explain complex or unfamiliar things without illustrations.) So get some land, some seeds (I reccomend Bountiful Gardens), some tools and get to work!

This is an excellent book. It covers many topics and therefore cannot go into great detail on all of them, but it is designed to give the reader a familiarity with practical knowledge about many different skills, crafts, and industries associated with obtaining and running a small, self-sufficient farm. Even though it does cover a huge number of topics, it still has a surprising amount of information about each one of them, presented effectively with lots of color illustrations that are easy to understand and apply to your own situation. As someone who has worked for almost ten years with blacksmithing equipment, it was great to see such a detailed description of tools and step-by-step instructions for hot forging several useful implements in this book. There are also good sections on gardening, yard planning, owning animals, etc. Overall, I was surprised by the content of this book and definitely recommend it to anyone interested in being self-sufficient and looking after yourself with your own ingenuity. I also recommend it to anyone who isn't yet interested, because it is a good thing to be interested in and this book will help with that.

I got my first Back to Basics book back when I was in my twenties (I am now 64). I loved the book then and I love it still, now, because of all the information that it gives to you on how to live. In a world where technology has overridden our lives--some good~some bad, Back to Basics brings us everything we could possibly need to exist and live-- especially if say an EMP or a solar strike knocked us right back to the 1800's. Most people would not survive. But with Back to Basics, you would have what you needed to live. I had to order another book because I have given away MY book a couple of times. I would never not have a Back to Basics book in my home!

This book touches on everything I ever had questions about. I am a prepper, and I've always wondered about things like tanning hide and making dyes and soap. This goes as far as telling how to render fat and make your own lye. It has plans for building cabins, smoke houses, gardens, recipes, emergency shelters... Even has medicinal plants and first aid. It is all obtainable if you have the basic supplies. For the size and price of the book, there is a library of information. A truly must have for anyone who ever questioned how to self sustain. Clothing, crops, forging, preserving, heating and energy, and all the plans and how-to's. I've had it for two days and took this book to work. Everyone that looked at it has asked me where I got it. Get this book, you will not regret it!

excellent book :: must have

An excellent book and covers more than I would ever need. Very well written and compiled with clear descriptions, proper easy to follow instructions for the many projects. If you ever find youself in a situation where you no longer have access to our modern conveniences this book is probably all you'll need to help you build a house, grow food, make furniture and entertain your neighbours! Very interesting to read and I look forward to practising and learning these near forgotten skills. I also bought a copy for my Dad and he loves the book too.

Il y a 4 ans, j'avais emprunté le livre, L'art de vivre au temps Jadis, à ma bibliothèque locale. J'ai aimé ce livre, mais il n'était plus disponible, ni réimprimé. À 105$ pour un livre usagé, je trouvais le prix prohibitif. J'ai décidé d'acheter, Back to Basics, en me basant sur les commentaires des autres lecteurs. À la réception du livre, le format m'a rappelé celui de L'art de vivre au temps jadis. Quand j'ai feuilleté ce livre, j'étais abasourdi! J'avais retrouvé un compagnon de lecture. Non seulement ma recherche du livre était terminée, mais j'avais ce livre pour moins cher et avec plus d'informations. Très bon livre touche-à-tout qui donne un bon aperçu des techniques anciennes qui auraient usages à être redécouvertes: fabrication d'un tourne-borche ( je l'ai construit et c'est très facile à réaliser), fabrication de tapis, technique de conservation de la viande. Il faudrait une encyclopédie en plusieurs volumes pour tout apprendre sur l'autarcie, mais pour les personnes désireuses de faire pousser leurs légumes, de fabriquer un fumoir, de faire la mise en conserve ou de s'essayer à la construction d'un abri en bois rond, je vous recommande chaudement ce livre. À mettre entre les mains de tout bon gentleman-farmer désireux de posséder son lopin de terre et de vivre des produits de la terre.

This book is a beautifull product of printing and binding. Inside is a wealth of info on off-grid sustainable living. Also a great gift if you want other people to start thinking about moving to a more sustainable living arangement.

If I was left alone on an island and could only bring one book, this would be it. It has great, easy to understand instructions for how to live off the land, with nice illustrations as well. I bought this book for my son (12 years old), after admiring the older, out of print edition at the library for many years. We had been watching the BBC series Life on a Victoria Farm, and he was inspired to learn more about traditional ways of life. We haven't raised our own chickens yet, but we have talked about making our own cheese, and we've learned to knit and sew. This book really makes you appreciate all the work behind things we take for granted. Highly recommended.