Overview

Rural homesteaders and urban apartment-dwellers alike will find a mother lode of practical information packed into this completely revised and updated edition of the ultimate how-to handbook for all generations. A selective compendium of public-domain documents, it brings together in one volume a wealth of knowledge and useful instruction on just about every imaginable aspect of self-sufficiency—from building a dwelling and growing food to raising children, using tools of all kinds, and, yes, getting more mileage out of your car. Readers will learn how to: build a greenhouse; administer first aid; stock an emergency shelter; survive in the wilderness, at sea, and in the city; plant, buy farmland; grow plants indoors and out; read architect’s drawings; care for household pets; repair clothing; hunt, trap, and fish; repair a screen or leaking faucet; butcher and store big-game kill; relieve allergy symptoms; control insects; stay safe during storms and floods; can and freeze fruits and vegetables; take your own blood pressure; and much, much more!Praise for a previous edition: “How we have survived this long without [this book], I don’t know. The concept is brilliant and simple. . . . If we had lived in a rural community a century ago, much of the knowledge gathered here would have been in our bones.”—Harper’s

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9781599215662

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Reviews

Praise for the first edition: How we have survived this long without [this book] I don't know. The concept is brilliant and simple. . . . If we had lived in a rural community a century ago, much of the knowledge gathered here would have been in our bones. --Harper's It has the hand-hewn feel of the old Whole Earth Catalog. . . . I find it to be perfect bedtime reading, and my dreams are filled with the care of corn crops and methods of collecting water after falling from an airplane. Public Works gives me fantasies of starting over with a few acres of farmland, a hammer, and a saw, and provides me with a vision of unelectrified reliance. --Paul Ford, Morning News (Web-based periodical)

Praise for the first edition: <br> How we have survived this long without [this book] I don't know. The concept is brilliant and simple. . . . If we had lived in a rural community a century ago, much of the knowledge gathered here would have been in our bones. -- Harper's It has the hand-hewn feel of the old Whole Earth Catalog. . . . I find it to be perfect bedtime reading, and my dreams are filled with the care of corn crops and methods of collecting water after falling from an airplane. Public Works gives me fantasies of starting over with a few acres of farmland, a hammer, and a saw, and provides me with a vision of unelectrified reliance. --Paul Ford, Morning News (Web-based periodical) <br>

Author Information

Walter Szykitka authored the popular original edition of The Big Book of Self-Reliant Living in 1974 under the title Public Works. He is the editor of two other how-to reference books. He lives in New York City.

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