The Self-Sufficiency Bible By Mrs Vera West

John Steele is apparently going through yet another book crisis, and reviewing his limited supply of books before passing them on to the next generation of paranoids. That is most excellent. To compliment that worthy task, some reviews of books that I have been meaning to do, but the issue of the collapse of Western civilisation, and emerging Covid1984-totalitarianism just got in the way, but I am sure that you understand.

To start, in no particular order, Simon Dawson, The Self-Sufficiency Bible, (Watkins, 2013). This is part of a heart-warming genre of books, where people simply have enough of modern techno-industrial society, and seek a simpler life. Many of these authors had big time corporate jobs that were slowly, or not so slowly, killing them. Likewise, for this author, Simon Dawson, who sold his London abode and moved to a rundown farm, if it can be called that in Exmoor, by a stream. Everything had fallen to pieces, not having been maintained for several generations. As well, both he and his wife had no knowledge of small-scale farming, or alternative agriculture. So, all had to be done from the ground up, on a steep learning curve. But, they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and by the time of writing the book, some years down the track, had pretty much mastered the self-sufficient life style to the point of teaching others the fine arts of say, butchering pigs, and growing one’s own food.

There are twelve chapters in the book, each one dealing with an aspect of the self-sufficient life; the kitchen garden, the home baker, the home dairy, the home brewer, natural health and beauty, arts and crafts, livestock, meat preparation and butchery, curing and preserving, foraging, the resources conservation philosophy and renewable energy. Overall, this presupposes, ideally, that one has a property to bug out to, but many tips could be applied to urban environments, such as growing food in window boxes or in pots. The important thing with these sorts of books, I feel, is that it gets one thinking outside of the usual normie consumer mode, and that is something we little people must learn to do in the hard times a coming.