…With this ultimate winter reading list for homesteaders, you’ll have more than enough books to keep you company on the long, cold nights ahead of us.
Winter Reading
For many of us, winter means more hours inside as the cold starts to bite and fluffy white stuff falls from the sky.
Sometime around fall, I always start to compile my winter reading list, which honestly, always end up taking me a year or so to get through. I set way too ambitious reading goals but I don’t mind. The books aren’t going anywhere, they will wait patiently for me.
How I Compiled the Ultimate Winter Reading List
There are several different approaches you can take when compiling a reading list. You could go for the all-time best, must-read books in any given topic or you could go with as many books as possible in one topic.
This time, I started out with several categories I wanted to learn something in. This may not be your Ultimate Winter Reading List but it is mine. If you make your own I’d love to hear what books made it.
My categories for this list ended up being:
- Permaculture
- Animal husbandry
- Fermentation
- Nourishing food in general
- Herbalism
- Finances
- Marriage
As I was thinking about my list for the year, it dawned on me just how many of the books in our homestead library were only partially read and there were even some I haven’t read anything in yet! I managed to populate my entire list with books I already own, which is a very frugal way of going about it.
The Ultimate Winter Reading List
Are you ready to see my picks for the Ultimate Winter Reading list? Let’s dive in!
Permaculture
Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (affiliate link) by Toby Hemenway. This book has been on my Want-To-Read list for years. Basically, ever since Scott mentioned it on his podcast. From what I’ve gathered this book is written from a very different worldview than my own. That does not mean there isn’t a lot to be learned from the book and I’m excited to read it finally.
Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual (affiliate link) by Bill Mollison
This is a tome. At almost 600 pages, this book is BIG. It’s also the go-to book for permaculturists and I feel so privileged to have a copy. It may take me all year to get through just this one book, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it.
Animal Husbandry
I only have one animal in this category at the moment: bees. Living in a small flat with not even a balcony, and no pets allowed, we can’t do much in the animal husbandry realm – except learn. We are free to learn as much as we possibly can while we have the extra time that doing animal-related chores will take up in the future.
This winter, I’m diving into a beekeeping book by Danish authours, which I was gifted for my birthday. Some of my friends recommended the classic Langstroth on the Hive and the Honeybee (affiliate link), which happened to be free on kindle, so now I have that one to read as well!
Fermentation
A big part of my health journey is healing my gut. Fermentation is one of the best ways we’ve found to empower our guts. We have a couple of recipe books on fermentation in Danish but I’m going to get lost in The Art of Fermentation (affiliate link) by Sandor Katz and really get to grips with all that fermentation encompasses.
Nourishing Food in General
Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats (affiliate link)by Sally Fallon is a great book! The title alone made me fall in love with the book many years ago. I’ve read many pieces and cooked many things from it over the years. None the less, I’ve never sat down and just read it cover to cover and I feel like this cookbook is worthy of just such a read.
Herbalism
A friend recommended The Complete Illustrated Guide to Holistic Herbal: A Safe and Practical Guide to Making and Using Herbal Remedies (affiliate link) by David Hoffmann as my first herbal medicine book and I’ve used it to look up treatments for certain things as well as the benefits of Cayenne Pepper among other things.
I’ve yet to read all of the really important first chapters that explain all the jargon which sounds a bit like jibberish to me. So this winter my goal is to read all that and (hopefully) get a lot more knowledgeable.
Finances
Most people don’t believe what we’ve been capable of doing on a really small budget. I owe much of our financial success to my upbringing but also to books that have taught me how to stretch every penny. The Complete Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle by
Another book on the topic of finances that made my list was Living Well Spending Less: 12 Secrets of the Good Life by Ruth Soukup. It’s been highly recommended, so I hope to be inspired and glean some wisdom.
Finally, there’s a classic I’ve yet to read: Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Vicky Robin. My version is fully revised and updated for 2018. While Vicky Robin and I might not agree on everything, she can teach me a lot about things I know very little about.
Marriage
My final category is marriage. I’m blessed with a wonderful husband and a peaceful marriage. That doesn’t mean I can’t work to make it even greater! As a homesteader, it’s in your best interest to keep your marriage strong and vibrant. i
I’m part way through Wife for Life: The Power to Succeed in Marriage by Ramona Zabriskie. It’s a very insightful book. I got stuck because I thought it was a biblically based book, which it is not.
Since I had gotten the wrong impression of Wife for Life, I went hunting for a different book. That’s when I discovered The Excellent Wife: A Biblical Perspective by Martha Peace. It’s my hope that these two books will supplement each other really well.
What’s on Your Winter Reading List
I’m always looking for new recommendations for great books. Leave a comment or tell me on Instagram or Facebook what some of the books on your winter reading list are!
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