Skip to main content

Books in 2015

I love to read and I love the process of critically reviewing a book and noting down my thoughts.  I hope you find it useful for finding books that you need.  Some of the books are sent to me to review, some I buy new or secondhand and some are from the library.  No matter where the book comes from I try to give my honest assessment.  Sometimes I read a book that I don't like for one reason or another, and I tend to not review that book at all, I don't see the value in writing about something I didn't enjoy.  I aim for about one review a month.  Sometimes I'm reading more than one at a time, but I at least try to FINISH one a month!


eight acres: books reviewed in 2015
One of my bookshelves!

I include affiliate links where possible, and I make a few cents in Amazon vouchers every time someone clicks on my link.  This year so far I've accumulated $10.95 in Amazon credit.  If you were going to buy something from Amazon anyway, getting there through my links doesn't cost you anything extra and I get some credit.  A big thank you to everyone who has done that, it helps me to buy  more books!

I'm always looking for more books to read, so please share with me books that you have found useful.  What are your favourite books around the homestead?  For animal care, real food, farming, gardening, sustainability, permaculture??
Here's what I reviewed in 2015:
Beekeeping books and resources

The Third Plate

Omnivore's Dilemma

Eat Drink Paleo

A Postage Stamp Garden

The Building of the Queensland House

Five Acres and a Dream - the book

The Raw Milk Answer Book

Happy Hair - The definitive guide to giving up shampoo



eight acres: books reviewed in 2015
A few new books to read

I recently bought a few books that were recommended to us and I have stack of beekeeping books to read as well.  Next year you can expect reviews of the following, and several more I expect:

Organic Farming with Worms (David Murphy)

One Straw Revolutionary (Larry Korn)
One-Straw Revolutionary: The Philosophy and Work of Masanobu Fukuoka


Advancing Biological Farming (Garry Zimmer and Leilani Zimmer-Durand)
Advancing Biological Farming


Beekeeping books and dvds:
The Australian Beekeeping Manual (Robert Owen)
The Australian Beekeeping Manual

Queen Rearing Essentials (Lawrence John Connor)
Queen Rearing Essentials

The Bee Book - Beekeeping in Australia (P. Warhurst and R. Goebel)

Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture (Ross Conrad)
Natural Beekeeping with Ross Conrad (DVD)


Affiliate links included for the books that are listed on Amazon in case you want to get ahead of me!  You can see the images if you click through to the blog page here and you can find my full list of books in my Amazon book shop here.


          


Labels:

Comments

  1. LeighDecember 15, 2015 at 11:15 AM

    So many good books, so little time! I like your one-a-month goal. I'm a very slow reader because I save my reading for the end of the day and then I usually fall asleep before I get very far. I like your book store too. That's a great way to make recommendations, and I find the reviews useful as I try to sort out my own book purchases. Keep it up!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks, I appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions, but I don't always get time to reply right away. If you need me to reply personally to a question, please leave your email address in the comment or in your profile, or email me directly on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

Farm update - August 2017

Its been cold this month, and very nice to have the fire going every night.  Here's a photo of my boy in his cape, great for late night woofing at things.  Most of July we were either preparing for the butcher to come or putting meat away.  Its always a big job, but its only once a year, and its all done now.  My lovely neighbour came over to help, so it was fun to have the company and work together.  Taz was a champion once again as she helped us to move cattle in the yards ready to load for the market.  Gus is not at that level yet and had to stay home (he cries when he gets left behind, but he just gets in the way and scatters the cattle).  We have had a few sprinkles of rain here and there, but also plenty of cold nights, so the grass is mostly dead and dry, waiting for the warmer weather to revive our summer-active pasture. Gus in his cape Taz after she helped to move cattle Food and cooking It was all about beef in July and we are v...
2 comments
Read more

Cooking and eating beans

When I was growing up, my family never ate many dried beans, they just weren't something that was used much in NZ cuisine.  If I did eat beans, it was always from a can (and most likely baked beans).  And until recently I was still using beans from a can, but it can be difficult to get organic beans, and to find cans not lined with BPA.  Then I had an opportunity to buy some organic dry goods in bulk, so I bought 5kg of kidney beans, 5kg of adzuki beans and 5kg of chickpea (garbanzo beans).  I know, that is a lot of beans.  And then I didn't really know what to do with them!  Not just what dishes to put them in, but how to prepare them, I just didn't know what method to use. So I decided it was time to learn how to use all these beans that I bought, here's what I found out. I started with an excellent ebook called The Everything Beans Book , from Katie at Kitchen Stewardship, which has lots of bean recipes, but more importantly, an explanation of h...
12 comments
Read more

Guest post: Is there a place for power tools in the garden?

One of my regular readers and commenters offered to write a guest post about a horticulture course, its quite a funny read, with some serious insights into our technology obsession.  If you'd like to submit a guest post, email me at eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com.  While I am always happy to share links back to your blog or website, this contributor preferred to remain anonymous.  I hope you enjoy their story.... -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**-  -**- Just a few days ago our daily horticulture classes were interrupted by an invitation to review some new gardening gadgets. The idea was to open half a dozen of electric hand trimmers , test them and fill in some review about their goods and bads. As nothing is more dear to a student – even a “hort “ one - to escape routine and mess around till lunchtime, we opened the boxes and got down to business. What did we...
8 comments
Read more