The Foxfire books... 'and other affairs of plain living'.

Thanks to Jenny (in Alaska) for reminding me about these via her blog. I bought a couple of them on one of my visits to Appalachia many years ago - they're compendiums of rural life, old country traditions, and of a way of life that I can just barely remember traces of here on our side of the Atlantic. And they're much more than reminiscences, they're akin to 'how-to' guidebooks. Definitely worth buying if you were rared in the country, or even if Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has inspired you... or if you have professional pig killers in your family tree (like I do). You're not going to get an article entitled 'Slaughtering Hogs' in Country Living magazine - but you do in this volume of Foxfire. Full of photography and hand drawn diagrams, all of the books are available here.