The Real Good Life - Soil Association

[hedgewizard]

ISBN 1-84403-214-0 Cassell Illustrated 2005

A bit of a disappointment, frankly. Apart from the very occasional gem (including giving a henhouse two popholes on opposite sides, something I thought I'd invented!) this book is nothing more than a lavishly illustrated primer, heavy on concept but light on detail. Having said that, it might make a good present for friends if they suspect you might be raving mad and you'd quite like them to know what you're actually about.

There's a foreward by HF-W, in which he misses the point about self-sufficiency completely and talks only about the health and taste benefits of growing your own food. That aside, the greatest disappointment is the very skimpy chapter on "the green home" right at the end of the book. I think the best bit about the book is the photos, which are terribly appealing in a modern cookbookish sort of way but tend to feature manicured lawns and spanking new equipment. My favourite are two shots taken a couple of months apart in front of an elegant and newly-painted house. In one, a slightly anxious lady feeds two sheep from a perfectly new and clean bucket. She looks a little anxious. In the other photograph the sheep have been banished and the lawn, now immaculate, has been newly mown for her to walk across with her cardiganed husband, trug full of perfect seasonal vegetables casually held in her outside hand. They both look unusually clean for SSers!

In short, if you're on this forum reading this, this probably isn't the book for you. It might be a good book to have on your coffee table, but not if you're at all concerned how shabby the reality might look compared with those wonderful photographs...

[ina]

Thanks for the warning... Actually, my coffee table is so full of seed packets, "real" gardening books, unpaid bills, and the odd plant tub, trowel etc that I wouldn't find room for a book like that.

Obviously somebody thought they'd found a useful bandwagon to jump onto?