Back to basics - Abigail Gehring

Anyone who wants to learn basic living skills - the kind employed by our forefathers - and adapt them for a better life in the twenty-first century need look no further than this eminently useful, full-colour guide.

Countless readers have turned toBack to Basicsfor inspiration and instruction, escaping to an era before power saws and fast food restaurants and rediscovering the pleasures and challenges of a healthier, greener, and more self-sufficient lifestyle. Now newly updated, the hundreds of projects, step-by-step sequences, photographs, charts, and illustrations inBack to Basicswill help you dye your own wool with plant pigments, graft trees, raise chickens, craft a hutch table with hand tools, and make treats such as blueberry peach jam and cheddar cheese. The truly ambitious will find instructions on how to build a log cabin or an adobe brick homestead.

More than just practical advice, this is also a book for dreamers - even if you live in a flat in a city you will find your imagination sparked, and there's no reason why you can't, for example, make a loom and weave a rag rug. Complete with tips for old-fashioned fun (including homemade toys and kayaking tips), this may be the most thorough book on voluntary simplicity available.