Sunday, March 29, 2009

Living In The Past - and Loving It!

I love old books. I have found some great old books at yard sales, antique shops, thrift stores, etc., but they are getting harder and harder to find. So I was pleased to discover Better Days Books, a cool website that sells reprints of old books from the 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries, with a focus on gardening, holidays, traditional skills, cooking, etc. On cooking, please note that some of the recipes tend to go heavy on animal products, but you have to consider the time in which they were written. One of my favorites, "The American Frugal Housewife," was first published in 1832. Below, I'll show you a few of the covers I like the best, and give you the info Better Days Books makes available about them on their website.



The American Frugal Housewife

Originally published in 1832, this manual for the homemaker of modest means is far more than a mere "cookbook." In an age before electricity, refrigeration or any other modern convenience, the fine art of storing, preparing and serving food presented difficulties unimagined in our time, challenges our forebears mastered with ingenuity, hard work, the inherited knowledge of generations past, and the sheer American pluck required to make the cheerful best of any social or economic situation. Also included are instructions for making soap, beer and wine, for repairing worn clothing and furniture, for enduring poverty, and even for rightly educating one's daughters.


If You're Going to Live in the Country

If You're Going to Live in the Country employs stories from the author's own relocation to the country to illustrate practical information anyone who shares his dream of escaping the physical, mental and spiritual confinement of big city life can apply toward successfully following in his footsteps, with chapters on the "Do's & Don'ts" of selecting country property, financing the purchase, building VS remodeling, working with architects, builders and contractors, inspecting an old house, moving an old home to a new site, fireplace construction and maintenance, digging wells, sewage and septic systems, the well-equipped country kitchen, pets and livestock, preparing for winter, fire safety, what to do when things go wrong, and finding a pleasurable balance with the natural world.


Vegetable Dyes

Short, to the point, chock full of practical 'how to' information – and very affordable, to boot. Ethel M. Mairet's classic Vegetable Dyes: A Book of Recipes and Information Useful to the Dyer is a single-source natural dyeing handbook.









My Book of Indoor Games

The perfect "cabin fever" companion for energetic children cooped up indoors during the long winter months - or in urban settings where outdoor play is unsafe or unsavory year round - Clarence Squareman's 1916 classic MY BOOK OF INDOOR GAMES shares rules and clear play instructions for nearly 200 games, puzzles, riddles and tricks with which children of all ages can actively and intelligently amuse themselves without need for computers, video game play systems or TV. Many of these games are so old as to have been long forgotten by present generations - allowing them to be rediscovered and made "new again" by children today. A great "idea book" for homeschool groups, teachers, child care staff or anyone who truly cares about caring for children.


Librivox


Another great website for old books - and this one is free! - is Librivox.org. Librivox offers thousands of free audio recordings in MP3 format of books in the public domain, which means primarily books published before 1923. This is from their website:


LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books.


Our Fundamental Principles
Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project
Librivox donates its recordings to the public domain
Librivox is powered by volunteers
Librivox maintains a loose and open structure
Librivox welcomes all volunteers from across the globe, in all languages


I especially recommend Gordon MacKenzie's reading of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Chris's favorite from Librivox is Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio.

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