Oh, one of my favorites is "A Very Small Farm". Can't remember the author's name. He bought 20 acres in Oklahoma out of college, built his house by hand, made the core of his cash income keeping bees, had a cow for milk and cheese, a wonderful garden... The book is entries from his journal for a year. It gave me real encouragement to get moving towards this kind of life.

The Contrary Farmer by Gene Logsdon offers some incite into cottage farming, pluses and minuses. Any book written by Scott and Helen Nearing can offer a nice read for a slow evening.

Thank you both so very much for the information. I am going to the library next week and try to find them. Anyone else have any recommendations?
Its going to be a long winter, so I would love lots more. lol

It's not really about homesteading, but "This Organic Life" by Jean Gussow (I think) is about eating locally, and she describes the gardens she's had in her life and how much she eats in season or preserves for when she can't grow anything (which is about one month a year despite the fact that she lives in New England).

If providing all the food for your table is part of your homesteading goals, this book might be inspirational.

Try Mother Earth magazine.

Try to find either of the books by Elinor Pruitt Stewart or Letters from a Woman Homesteader which is about her. She was a single mother in the late 19th and early 20th century who took a job as housekeeper for the man who later was her second husband in southwest Wyoming. The books she wrote were so good but the one written about her gives so much insight into what she was really like. The National Endowment for the Humanities gave a grant for a movie made based on her life and for the life of me, I can't remember the name. If I can find my copies of the books, I will repost with the correct titles, author's name on the book about her and the ISBN's.

"Encyclopedia of Country Living" by Carla Emery

When ever I have a question I seem to always find the answer in this book. This book has 850+ pages and is worth all of the $30.00 I paid!

Here are a few more titles:

1. Living the good life. Helen and Scott Nearing. 1972

2. Continuing the good life: Half a century of homesteading. Helen and Scott Nearing. 1979.

3. Payne Hollow. Harlan Hubbard. 1974.

Johanna,
It seems to me that Jean Gussow was the speaker at last year's CSA conference, and if so, she currently lives in Nyack, NY, almost across the river from New York City, where the conditions are pretty mild.
Ann

Ann wrote: "she currently lives in Nyack, NY, almost across the river from New York City, where the conditions are pretty mild."

Yes, that may well be. It's been a year or so since I read her book so my recollection was a bit foggy.

Fifty Acres and a Poodle- Jean Marie Laskas,
Behind the Mountains- Oliver Lafarge
Standing Up to the Rock T. Louise Freeman-toole
Dirt Under My Nails- Marilee Foster
The Last Days of Big Grassy Fork- Hunter James
In An Herb Garden- Annie Burnham
An Axe, A Spade and Ten Acres- George Courtauld
My Garden Comes of Age- Julia H. Cummins
Duck Hill Journal: A Year In A Country Garden- Page Dickey
The Sweet Apple Gardening Book- Celestine Sibley
Diary of a Plain Dirt Gardener- Henry B. O'Brien
A Small Farm in Maine- Terry Silber
A Country Womans Year- Rosemary Verey

A good place to find used books at decent prices is the searches at: http://www.addall.com/ They find the books you are looking for from all the sellers and give you the best price plus shipping. There is only one book they haven't been able to find for me but it was an extremely rare book from the 1900's with a limited printing. Good reading! B.

Here is a link that might be useful: Addall

Thank you to all for your help. This should make winter go by a bit faster, or at least make it a bit more tolerable.
lol
rosemary

Five Acres and Independence is another older book that is good that I don't think anyone mentioned yet. I also read the Lasagna Gardening book last year, and picked up some good tips. I built one bed last fall using that method, and it did very well. Also as some people have already mentioned the early MENs are very good.

The Little House on the Prarie series of books give a very good view of homesteading, if you have not read them since you were a child. They are definitely worth rereading! Farmer Boy is especially good.

The MEN they are putting out right now is pretty good. They are going/working towards what they used to be.

I'd like to second the nomination on Carla Emery. Her "Old Fashioned Recipe Book" covers about every situation that could come up except delivering babies and maybe it has that and I just haven't found it yet. While she's telling you how to make soap or buy livestock, you learn to love her, her family & friends and neighbors. Painfully honest, funny, always hard to put down. Fab 70's illustrations by Cindy Davis. My homesteading sister gave me her beat up copy 20 years ago when she didn't have money for a Christmas present. I have treasured it for all 20 of those years.

I read Countryside Living Magazine http://www.countrysidemag.com and it is fantastic, as well as, http://www.backwoodshome.com. Check these sites out - I am sure that you will not be disappointed.

I really enjoy this website...www.backwoodshome.com
They have several different forums (some I don't care to participate in) and also a chat room that people are usually in on the weekends. Alot of the people on this site are living self-sufficiently and have alot of useful information that they gladly share with the rest of us. I enjoy going there to ask questions and learn from people who are living day by day the way that one day I would like to live.
Kathy

Another old post coming to life...sorry!

No one mentioned the "Foxfire" series. They are all about plain country livin and "how to" guides to have a hog killin' and corn shuckin's etc, etc of the mountain people in Georgia / Carolina's...but every book has numerous interviews with the people that are telling us how to build the fireplaces or keep bees.

Truly an awesome series of books. I only have 3 of them...but I read in an old post somewhere on this site recently that there are 19 books total. The last one printed in 1999.

I just found a site where you can download to your computer part of an audio book with excerpts from A selection from
LETTERS OF A WOMAN HOMESTEADER
I hven't done it yet but m thinking about it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Elinore Pruitt Stewart: free audio download (podcast) from Listen to Genius

More info
Heartland is a 1979 film, directed by Richard Pearce, starring Rip Torn and Conchata Ferrell. The movie is a stark depiction of early homestead life in the American West, and is based on a 1914 published reminiscence by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, titled Letters of a Woman Homesteader.

Though the story is set in southwestern Wyoming, where Stewart homesteaded, the movie was actually filmed in central Montana.