9 thoughts on “Reading this weekend: 2015”

1. The Emergent Agriculture text looks interesting, Brian. I had a brief look at some review etc material about the other two texts you mentioned on Chris’s blog. From what I found, they both appeared to focus on philosophical frameworks for non-industrial farming. Is that a fair summary?

   On a related note to the EA text, in the Mirboo North bakery for lunch the other day I got chatting with one of the owners of a local mushroom farm. They started growing mushrooms as essentially a hobby but this has grown to a sizable business. She said that the locally grown food market was very strong in Sth Gippsland with one aspect the increase in farmer markets. Interestingly, she said that one enjoyable outcome from the business was building relationships with her customers. Nice to hear.

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   • David,
     Happy New Year to you down under. That is encouraging about the growth of her mushroom business. We will see how ours develops and whether it moves beyond the strictly homestead usage.
     Emergent Agriculture was a good read. On a similar path I’ve just started Resilient Agriculture: cultivating food systems for a changing climate. And I may suggest it to our farming reading group. And yes that is a fairly spot on assessment of both of the titles referenced. Carlson is a religious conservative and comes at agrarianism from the standpoint of preserving the family. The Shi title is a survey of the literature on the urge to live a simple life. If you are a bibliophile I’d fully recommend both titles. Another in a similar vein is Quest for Walden: the “country book” in American popular literature by Owings. You might suspect, guess and be right that I once owned an out-of-print bookstore.
     Cheers,
     Brian

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     • Owning an out-of-print bookshop … what a great way to earn a living. I think I’d be wrestling with the customers over some books 🙂

       I’ll have a look at the Owings text you mention.

       Here’s something that might be of interest:

       http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/back-roads/IV1507H005S00

       Many regional Australian towns have suffered with changes in agriculture, markets, droughts and so on. You’ve mentioned in some of your posts similar problems with towns in your part of the world. This short program – which can be watched online – has a look at what a small town called Birchip in the Victorian Mallee has done to pep things up a bit. Useful examples of community led initiatives, relocalisation and so on.

       And a Happy New Year to you! And best wishes for a prosperous and productive 2016.

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       • David,
         Running the bookshop was a great way to not earn money. Now that I think about it, not dissimilar to running a farm. But with one significant difference, unless you are a bibliophagist, you can’t eat your crop of books. The Owen book is fun and points you to too many other titles to add to your collection. The good thing about collecting books in this area is that you can pick many up for under five bucks. I just picked up a first edition copy of a well-known gardening memoir by Mark Twain’s neighbor, in excellent condition, for 1.99. Just don’t tell Cindy I brought another book in the house.
         Tried to watch the link. It is specific to Australia only. Apparently there is an agreement with a network in the US not to show the content. Weird.
         Cheers,
         Brian

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2. Pingback: 2015 Reminisces; 2016 Forecasts | Gulliver's Pulse

3. Nice photo of the book shelf sir. I recognized so many Wendell Berry titles I had to pull mine together for a similar shot.

   Here’s to 2016. May all the weekend reading be rewarding.

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   • Ah, are we at that stage in our relationship of trading pictures of books? Great, where would be the fun in sharing a picture of an e-reader library.

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4. Happy new year to you Brian. I’m enjoying these bookshelf shots from you & Clem – may have to join in soon. Also interested like David in Emergent Agriculture…and Resilient Agriculture. Or just agriculture in general I guess. So if you had to choose between Carlson and Shi as a guide to American agrarian thought, which one?

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   • Chris,
     While the younger set swap indiscreet snaps, we the moderately older crowd swap pictures of our books. I like it. Hard to choose between both titles. Shi’s work focuses on the literature of the impulse to a Simple life in American culture. He begins that survey with the Puritans and ends in the counter-culture movement of the 1970’s. Very readable and directs you to a lot of very good writers.

     Carlson is one of my favorite writers in this field. But, as I mentioned his focus comes from a conservative bent that many find a bit off putting before even considering the content. I, having a less rigorous intellect, slide past the bits that trouble my inner heathen and focus on the bits that I like. His work focuses on decentralist thought in America in the 20th century. A competent survey of those curiously non-ideological movements back to the land that sprung up over the past century. All arisen out of a shared basic fear that an industrial economy was destroying what was best about either the past or the future of an agrarian people.

     Carlson also wrote one of my other favorite survey works in this field: Third Ways: how Bulgarian greens, Swedish housewives, and beer-swilling Englishmen created family-centered economies-and why they disappeared. A work that directed me to the curious Distributist movement, with their Flee to the Fields campaign in England. And the history of the peasant movements campaign for political power in central Europe during the inter-war period.

     But, why choose, they are both available for cheap in used copies. And we promise not to tell Mrs. Spudman.

     I’m off. I have to finish the Sunday blog, move the cattle to the winter pasture, cut some lumber and stir my elderberry wine.

     Cheers,
     Brian

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