Here are 100 books that The Good Life fans have personally recommended if you like
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Since childhood, I have wanted to live in the country. Six of my earliest years were spent in the city of Bradford, Yorkshire, and San Francisco, California. Sandwiched between those two periods was a year I barely remember on a chicken farm in Zephyrhills, Florida. The fuzzy reminisces of that period elevated it in my mind to a lovely existence in which I roamed about freely, following my parents as they worked in the garden and produced delicious meals from its bounty. I romanticized living on the land as I grew up. My favorite books in childhood were Little House on the Prairie and The Bobbsey Twins in the Country.
I believe everyone should read at least one book by Penelope Lively, and this one is my favorite.
I love this book because I can enjoy it over and over. I can pick it up and read a chapter at random and find something engaging, surprising, even magical.
The author loves reading, writing, and gardening. So do I. When I read a chapter of Lively’s book it immediately draws me in, away from any troubles or challenges I may have been struggling with, and transports me to another place, for example to the prairies of Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder in the chapter on Time, Order and the Garden, or to a Somerset garden in the UK, overrun with rabbits and foxes and cats, in the chapter she calls Town and Country.
'Wonderful. A manifesto of horticultural delight' Literary Review
'Beautiful. Perfect for literary garden lovers' Good Housekeeping
'Rich and unusual, a book to treasure. Few recent gardening books come anywhere close to its style, intelligence and depth' Observer
'The two central activities in my life - alongside writing - have been reading and gardening.'
Penelope Lively has always been a keen gardener. This book is partly a memoir of her own life in gardens: the large garden at home in Cairo where she spent most of her childhood, her grandmother's garden in a sloping Somerset field, then two successive Oxfordshire…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Since childhood, I have wanted to live in the country. Six of my earliest years were spent in the city of Bradford, Yorkshire, and San Francisco, California. Sandwiched between those two periods was a year I barely remember on a chicken farm in Zephyrhills, Florida. The fuzzy reminisces of that period elevated it in my mind to a lovely existence in which I roamed about freely, following my parents as they worked in the garden and produced delicious meals from its bounty. I romanticized living on the land as I grew up. My favorite books in childhood were Little House on the Prairie and The Bobbsey Twins in the Country.
This is an academic book, but I found it easy and fascinating to read. The author is a sociologist who studied 1300 of the thousands of individuals who gave up their suburban homes in the 60’s, 70s, and 80s for a few acres of rural land.
I loved it because the experiences of the families the author studied shared my values and my own reasons for living off the grid. It also described some of my romantic misconceptions about what it would be like to live a “simple life” with a group of friends. I would describe this book as an introduction to homesteading for city dwellers who dream of moving to the country.
"[P]ractically everyone I know is nursing fantasies about escaping the life they're trapped in and creating one that makes more sense," writes the editor of Utne Reader in a recent issue. "The people I most admire, though, are those who actually do it-who break free and pursue a higher calling no matter how great the risk."
New Pioneers is about one such group of people-the hundreds of thousands of urban North Americans who over the past three decades have given up their city or suburban homes for a few acres of land in the countryside.
Since childhood, I have wanted to live in the country. Six of my earliest years were spent in the city of Bradford, Yorkshire, and San Francisco, California. Sandwiched between those two periods was a year I barely remember on a chicken farm in Zephyrhills, Florida. The fuzzy reminisces of that period elevated it in my mind to a lovely existence in which I roamed about freely, following my parents as they worked in the garden and produced delicious meals from its bounty. I romanticized living on the land as I grew up. My favorite books in childhood were Little House on the Prairie and The Bobbsey Twins in the Country.
First published in 1972, Gene Logsdon’s first book about farming is a how-to guide for beginning back-to-the-landers. For those who had romantic or idealistic ideas about farming and raising animals, as I did, the author provides practical advice on gardening and homesteading as well as reassurance that life in the country can be rewarding and enjoyable.
I loved this book because it supported my view that living on the land was possible and would be fulfilling, while teaching me some very important skills needed to get as much as possible out of the land I had purchased.
Two Acre Eden is more than your average how-to book. The first in a long line of beloved books by homesteading sage Gene Logsdon, Two Acre Eden is an insightful and light-hearted treatise on gardening, homesteading, and getting the most out of your land.
With a healthy dose of humor and eye toward pragmatism, Logsdon dispenses page after page of unbeatable advice on designing, building, and living off of your very own two-acre Garden of Eden. Inside you'll find practical and creative tips on:
Mulching Pesticide use Planting cycles Urban farming Pruning Seed selection And much more...
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
Since childhood, I have wanted to live in the country. Six of my earliest years were spent in the city of Bradford, Yorkshire, and San Francisco, California. Sandwiched between those two periods was a year I barely remember on a chicken farm in Zephyrhills, Florida. The fuzzy reminisces of that period elevated it in my mind to a lovely existence in which I roamed about freely, following my parents as they worked in the garden and produced delicious meals from its bounty. I romanticized living on the land as I grew up. My favorite books in childhood were Little House on the Prairie and The Bobbsey Twins in the Country.
This book is a practical guide to raising a small flock of chickens in your backyard or on a small piece of land. The authors clearly loved their chickens and imbue them with all kinds of personalities and behaviors.
I loved this book because when I moved to the land, I had only vague memories of my grandfather raising chickens in Australia when I was six. I had no idea how to build a henhouse or manage a flock of chickens on my 5-acre piece of land. The authors also started from scratch, so I felt confident that if I followed their instructions, I would be able to do so, too.
Your backyard can be the source of the best eggs and meat you've ever tasted. The answer is chickens--endearing birds that require but a modest outlay of time, space and food.
As they learned to raise chickens, Gail and Rick Luttmann came to realize the need for a comprehensive but clear and nontechnical guide. Their book covers all the basics in a light and entertaining sytle, from housing and feeding through incubating, bringing up chicks, butchering, and raising chickens for show.
Througout the book, the Luttmanns express their wonder at the personalities of chickens--the role of brash protector played by…
As a born and bred Mainer, there are dozens of great books I could recommend set in the Pine Tree State. But the five I’ve curated capture, for me, the diversity of the Maine culture, from the long-gone loggers who made their living from the woods to the often-overlooked Indigenous communities to the mill towns struggling to survive. When a non-Mainer thinks of our state, what usually comes to mind are quaint coastal villages, lighthouses, lobster… And while those things are part of what makes Maine the place it is, there exists, both on and off the page, plenty of other experiences and histories to discover here.
In lyrical prose, Rich brings the reader into her real experience as a woman living in the Maine woods during the 1930s.
Rich’s narrative often reads like an adventure story—black bears, raging snowstorms—but some of my favorite scenes center around the endless daily chores necessary to a life in the wilderness. I also love Rich’s stories of the logging camps that surround her and her husband’s homestead.
Her riveting descriptions of the annual river drives, during which logs would be floated from the forest down to the lumber and paper mills, recall a way of life nearly unfathomable for those of us in the modern age. And if all that weren’t enough, Rich’s singular, humorous voice is simply a delight to read.
In her early thirties, Louise Dickinson Rich took to the woods of Maine with her husband. They found their livelihood and raised a family in the remote backcountry settlement of Middle Dam, in the Rangeley area. Rich made time after morning chores to write about their lives. We Took to the Woods is an adventure story, written with humor, but it also portrays a cherished dream awakened into full life. First published 1942.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a different kind of life. I was brought up by two writers who took me to magical places, far away from cities, to meet magical people. I spent my childhood searching for horse chestnuts and looking for otters. I wasn’t interested in electronic games and loud music: I wanted instead to be out in nature, watching for wild things and listening to the song of birds. It comes back to Iona, to this tiny little island on the west coast of Scotland which I will feel always is my spiritual home. In that place, I have everything I need. Nothing that a big city can offer tempts. Ever.
This is a work of non-fiction, and it’s my very favourite in the world. On one level it’s about a man who leaves the world behind and goes to live in the most remote corner he can find to live with a pet otter. But it’s about a whole lot more than that. Gavin Maxwell brings to life the sound of the birds and the crashing of the waves; you can smell the seashore beyond the door of the house and you can walk out onto the beach to see the beauty in every direction. It’s a love song to the natural world, that’s what it is. And if it doesn’t leave you moved, then you’re harder than stone.
The classic account of otters in the Scottish highlands and the naturalist who cared for them there.
While touring the Iraqi marshes, Gavin Maxwell was captivated by an otter and became a devoted advocate of and spokesman for the species. Maxwell moved to a remote house in the Scottish highlands, co-habiting there with three otters and living an idyllic and isolated life at least for a while. Fate, fame, and fire conspired against this paradise, and it, too, came to an end, though the journey was filled with incident and wonder.
An extraordinarily evocative writer, Maxwell was also talented as…
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
Understanding history is essential for understanding ourselves as human beings – for recognising where we’ve come from and why we live as we do. What I love about historical fiction is that it can take tumultuous times and show their effects on the individuals who lived through them. As a historical novelist, I try to bring history back to a tangible, human level. These short novels show that if a writer’s prose is fresh, witty, and moving, then historical novels don’t need to be enormous tomes to give us a new slant on the past and allow us to inhabit lives utterly different from our own.
This exquisite book tells the story of the one family in the remote Maesglasau valley in Wales, and the ferocious changes that the twentieth century brings to their traditional rural way of life.
Originally written in the Welsh language and beautifully translated into lyrical English, this is a poignant and unforgettable story. I love how the language is simple, but it delicately renders the lives of the family members, giving them dignity and beauty despite sorrow and hardships. It feels old-fashioned yet also timeless.
"The most fascinating and wonderful book" JAN MORRIS
"A restrained, lyrical tour de force" OWEN SHEERS
In the early years of the last century, Rebecca is born into a rural community in the Maesglasau valley in Wales; her family have been working the land for a thousand years, but the changes brought about by modernity threaten the survival of her language, and her family's way of life.
Rebecca's reflections on the century are delivered with haunting dignity and a simple intimacy, while her evocation of the changing seasons and a life that is so in tune with its surroundings is…
I read this book many years ago in 2000. This book with magic realism awoke my love of magic (buried since a child). Five bottles of homemade wine hold powerful but subtle magic which transform the hero’s life. I love the concept that there is always hope; that there is something out there if we just reach out and believe. The setting is in France which also awoke a desire to travel–and I love making homemade wine!
This captivating and charming novel from international multi-million copy seller Joanne Harris takes us back to the French village we first discovered in Chocolat. Seamlessly interweaving the past and the present, magic and memory, it is a sensual rollercoaster that will appeal to fans of Victoria Hislop, Fiona Valpy, Maggie O'Farrell and Rachel Joyce.
'Thickly sensuous, wildly indulgent, magical escapism: Chocolat lovers will drink deeply' --GUARDIAN 'Joanne Harris has the gift of conveying her delight in the sensuous pleasures of food, wine, scent and plants... Blackberry Wine has all the appeal of a velvety scented glass of vintage wine' --…
Writing is about the metaphysical as well as the rational if it’s any good. As an author, I am always more interested in the wreckage of a crisis than the crisis itself—in the aftermath. Survivors search for purpose above all else. They undertake long sojourns, seek spiritual counsel, or find solace in art or politics. As a writer who has dealt with illness for most of my adult life, I think one path that is shared by all these novels is the discovery of agency—over one’s body, one’s choices, and one’s own life and death. There lies meaning.
This is a meta-fictional novel about the fragile state of memory and interpretation.
Stories can save us, and in the case of 13-year-old Briony Tallis, stories can ruin us. A single accusation is enough to destroy her sister, a young man’s life, and their future together. It shows us that the art of writing can be both sacred and profane.
It is a novel inhabited by ghosts, one that taught me the importance of absence in storytelling, of the silences and liminal spaces when writing about epic events. The style obfuscates the plot, then later renders it in vivid detail.
What lives between the lines is critical. It asks if forgiveness and acts of retribution can counter the death that eventually comes for all of us.
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a…
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
by
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
My love and passion for embracing a cozy and romantic view of life is so strong that I built my entire business around it! I am a recipe developer, cookbook author, and content creator. My unique take on cooking and baking is by adding touches of fantasy, cottagecore, and history into my recipes and other creative work. This has led me to write all about living a more cozy lifestyle for the last 10 years! Romanticizing my life with the cottagecore aesthetic is how I find joy and comfort in a chaotic world, and I hope that can inspire others to embrace living their own magical lives!
Want to feel like a little kid again? This book, or any of the Brambly Hedge books by Jill Barklem, are the epitome of romanticizing your life!
I can remember reading the Brambly Hedge books as a child and falling in love with all of the beautiful scenes. These books present what so many people are craving right now, which is a cozy place to escape to.
As a child (and now) I loved the intricate interiors with historical details and the magical aspect of mice doing mundane tasks like baking or cleaning in little fluffy dresses. Now that I am older, I find that I really love reading these stories because they remind me to slow down and that it’s okay to stop for a moment to enjoy a cup of tea settled in by a warm fire.
Enter the beautiful world of Brambly Hedge with this exquisite treasury containing all eight of the much-loved, classic picture books.
Explore the natural world with the mice of Brambly Hedge, who made their first appearance in 1980 when the four seasonal stories were published. Ever since, readers have loved exploring the miniature world of the hedgerow and meeting the families that live there.
In this collection the mice have many adventures, but they always have time for fun and relaxation too. Whatever the season, and whether they are by the sea, in the hills, or simply at home…
