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 gardens…
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...
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
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 always been fascinated by history and the sense of place. That has led to a career in Egyptology, but I’ve come to realise that that fascination has been a part of my other interests whether it be Arsenal Football Club, rock music, or cycle touring. I’ve had the opportunity to travel a lot in recent years. My horizons have broadened, and I’ve come to appreciate the natural environment and man’s place in it more and more. None of the books on my list were chosen because of this – I read them because I thought I would enjoy them, but there’s a common theme linking them all – places, people, interactions.
This book is about a historic house in rural Suffolk in the East of England, which the author inherited from the artist John Nash. Blythe has himself made a career of writing about various aspects of the local landscape and how it, and the ways in which people have made their lives in the English countryside, have changed. The yeoman’s house itself, ‘Bottengoms’, was built in the 16th century, adapted, fell into ruin, and was then restored, and continues to be maintained to this day. It incorporates a garden and is set into the archetypally English countryside of Suffolk. Blythe’s gentle prose conveys a sense of sadness at the old ways of the traditional agricultural economy that have been lost, but in maintaining his beautiful house and sharing its story he is helping to keep some aspect of those ways, and that landscape, alive.
What happens in an old farmhouse when the farmers have left? Perhaps only a poet-historian-storyteller can say. These traditional work centres were established centuries ago, sometimes in the village street, often far away in their own fields. But the pattern of the toil was the same. This quietly vanished a few years ago. Ronald Blythe describes the going of it in his celebrated Akenfield. Some years before this his friend John Nash had rescued an already abandoned farmhouse in the Stour Valley from total dereliction. It was called Bottengoms. Nobody knows why. John Nash called himself an Artist-Plantsman. Behind both…
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
I grew up in a small, rural community that is perhaps best defined by cold, grey, rainy days – perfect reading weather. I developed an interest in learning about different places and cultures through books. Then I started traveling and my interest turned into a passion, that transformed my educational journey. I completed a Masters and PhD in Anthropology and did my field research for my degree in Australia and Nepal. I still love to learn about new cultures, though the children have meant less traveling and more adventuring via books!
This work of fiction is by the incredible Harriet Doerr. I adore her because she published her first book at 74 –a wonderful reminder that the muse doesn’t fade with age.
Her lifetime of wisdom and insight comes through in her second novel, Consider This, Señora. Set in rural Mexico, this book explores interactions between ex-pats and locals, ex-pats and visitors from the ‘home’ country, and relationships between husbands and wives when they are untethered from their communities.
The long-awaited and highly praised second novel by the author of Stones for Ibarra. The American characters here find themselves waiting, hoping, and living in rural Mexico-a land with the power to enchant, repulse, captivate, and change all who pass through it. Named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times.
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…
At a time when loneliness feels so widespread and divisions are sharper than ever, I am drawn to books that celebrate unlikely friendships. I grew up in South Africa, where division and unfairness used to be entrenched in the law. And yet, I would look around and see ordinary people from different backgrounds, who owed each other nothing, still choose to offer support and compassion to one another. The stories I’ve chosen remind me that even in a world torn apart by division, there is hope that genuine connection can still exist, and even catch us by surprise, if we take the time to see past surface differences.
Having grown up in South Africa, a former British colony, I've always had a soft spot for the British. Tea and scones, understated manners, and insistence on proper etiquette are all familiar.
So when Major Pettigrew appears in the opening pages, I recognized his quintessential Englishness immediately. His dazed grief after his wife’s death makes him all the more endearing. And when this very proper widower finds himself attracted to Mrs. Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper in the English village, I was completely hooked.
Their relationship is an unlikely friendship that blossoms into love, and I was captivated by how he navigates the pull between his heart and the expectations and social codes of his world.
As the Brits might say, a thoroughly delightful read.
Major Ernest Pettigrew is perfectly content to lead a quiet life in the sleepy village of Edgecombe St Mary, away from the meddling of the locals and his overbearing son. But when his brother dies, the Major finds himself seeking companionship with the village shopkeeper, Mrs Ali. Drawn together by a love of books and the loss of their partners, they are soon forced to contend with irate relatives and gossiping villagers. The perfect gentleman, but the most unlikely hero, the Major must ask himself what matters most: family obligation, tradition or love?
Funny, comforting and heart-warming, Major Pettigrew's Last…
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
I’m a Pom, as Aussies would say, born and bred in England to an Australian mother and British father. I emigrated to Australia as a ten-pound Pom way back when and though I eventually came home again I’ve always retained an affection and a curiosity about the country, which in time led me to write three books about my own family history there. The early days of colonial Australia, when around 1400 people, half of whom were convicts, ventured across the world to found a penal colony in a country they knew almost nothing about, is one of the most fascinating and frankly unlikely stories you could ever hope to come across.
I’m a townie, but early colonial Australia is all about the land and how some early colonial pioneers made their fortunes from it. (Many didn’t, needless to say.) This book is all about them: the squatters, the stock riders, the drovers, the station hands, etc. The long and perilous journeys into remote New South Wales looking for land—officially and unofficially; how early pioneers coped with droughts, floods, disappearing stock, financial uncertainty, and not least, relationships with local Aboriginal people. There are hilarious accounts of the strange habits of cows, and of the “new chums”—wide-eyed young men who migrated to the colony with money but no farming experience hoping to make their fortunes, and how the (colonial) locals took the mickey out of them. Readable, witty, and again, written with great authority and in-depth knowledge.
