The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency - John Seymour

The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency: The Classic Guide for Realists and Dreamers
by John Seymour

Published by Dorling Kindersley - November 2023 - Hardcover - 378pp - 28.5cm x 23cm

The bestselling classic guide to a more sustainable way of life from one of the fathers of the self-sufficiency movement.

Embrace off-grid green living and imagine a more sustainable future with the original guide to self-sufficiency.

For more than 50 years, John Seymour has inspired thousands to make more eco-friendly choices with his advice on living sustainably. The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency offers step-by-step instructions on everything from chopping trees to harnessing solar power; from growing fruit and vegetables, and preserving and pickling your harvest, to baking bread, brewing beer, and making cheese. Seymour shows you how to live off the land, running your own smallholding or homestead, and raising (and butchering) livestock.

In a world of mass production, intensive farming, and food miles, Seymour's words offer an alternative: a celebration of investing time, labour, and love into the things we need. While we won't all be able to move to the countryside, we can appreciate the need to eat food that has been grown ethically or create things we can cherish, using skills that have been handed down through generations. This bestselling classic is a balm for anyone who has ever sought solace away from the madness of modern life.

‘Seymour lived the life himself. He put in the graft and the sweat and enjoyed the sweet rewards, and that’s why this book is as authoritative as it is accessible.’ — Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

John Seymour was educated in England and Switzerland. After studying at an agricultural college, he worked on farms in England for two years and then spent some ten years in Africa where, among other things, he managed a sheep and cattle farm and acted as a livestock officer for a government veterinary department. After service in the King's African Rifles in the war, he travelled widely, lived on a fishing boat, wrote, broadcast, and studied the way of life of rural people. Then he settled down to running a self-sufficient smallholding in Suffolk. After eight years in Suffolk he moved to Pembrokeshire, and a 62-acre farm which was developed as a school in the arts of self-sufficiency. John Seymour now lives in south east Ireland, where he and Angela Ashe are conducting ten day courses in self sufficient Small Holding at their home on the bank of the River Barrow.