Books on our shelves! Winter Reads

I LOVE to read! Mostly non-fiction, but a little chick-lit every now and then is a welcomed change.
If you missed my Fall book recommendations you can catch them HERE.

Here are some of my NEW fav's: Winter Book Recommendations.

I would highly recommend this book. It was an impulse buy while browsing the isles but so glad I picked it up. Jenna has such a great writing style, it chock full of information but in a very amusing way. It's mostly about modern homesteading, she keeps chickens and bee's, dogs and most recently sheep. Even if you're not planning on homesteading it's still a GREAT read. It made me want CHICKENS sooooo bad I even entertained the idea of a small coup in the back yard (you haven't seen the back yard yet, but it's around 100 sq feet, very tiny!! Lee's new rule is, if you can't fit a pool you can't have chickens, I have no idea where that came from, I guess Lee figures chickens take up as much room as a pool? anyways
This book just makes you want to hunker down, bake some bread and knit a scarf!
This is my #1 pick! It was a great read, I couldn't put it down, and am now a follower of her blog:
www.coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com

I really enjoyed this book, and YES Canadians can read it too :) hehe
It had a lot of great tips, a few new ones I hadn't heard of! and the best part about it was that they were all tips that the average person would find useful (assuming the average person is just like me :) What I mean is: I love the idea of couponing $600 of groceries for $12 is amazing, but I don't have 40 hours a week to dedicate to collecting coupons (also there are rarely coupons for fresh produce or unfrozen, un-processed meat, but I digress). This family saves money by cutting out un-necessary things, by shopping sales, and by practicing really good, common sense principals. I found them very inspiring!

Less is more, is a collection of short essays by the leading thinkers on simplicity, sustainability and doing more with less. A couple of essays were boring, a couple were AMAZING, but most of them were very interesting. I enjoyed reading this book, I found this book thought provoking and inspiring.
It's not an addictive read as each essay has an ending so it's the perfect book for me to read before bed, I can just read one essay then turn out the light. As soon as I pick up a novel it's a 4 am bedtime.

 

A GOOD read. I haven't been able to find an organization book I've really liked for a long time. They mostly just regurgitate the same tips, make three piles, keep, donate, sell etc.... ) but this book had a slightly new take. It did have some of the generic tips (keep nothing in your house that you don't find beautiful or useful), been there, done that. But it also had some nice moments, with some good tips, charts and sheets to fill out. It has a 10 day plan to organize your house, if you try it and it works let me know because I'm a housewife with no kids and one very small dog to look after, I could take entire 8 hour chunks of time to organize and there is Still no way I could organize the whole house in 10 days. But the Photography is beautiful! and there are some good useful hints and tips, cleaning recipes and a lot more to offer. In general a good reference book to keep around. 

 I liked this one a lot. It's got a good collection of homekeeping tips, tricks and ideas, but it took a totally different take on housekeeping. It was a very philosophical, spiritual look at housekeeping, I personally liked the change of pace. It gives you a whole new perspective to house work. I believe a house can take on energy, good energy or bad energy, this book helps you fill your house with good, positive energy! I really enjoyed reading it, it made me want to clean!

I could just stare at the pictures all day, enough said.

If you are looking for some SUPER delicious, quick meals, Sandi delivers. I cannot say enough good things about this cookbook. It's focus is easy weeknight dinners. We've tried at least half of the recipes in this book and have LOVED each one. I use this book at least once a week! I couldn't recommend this book enough!
In the words of Tony the Tiger "It's Grrrrrrr-eat!"

Pretty good. Most of the recipes are very easy, so far we've made about 10 or so of Jamie's recipes. A couple were fantastic, and a couple were just fine, nothing special. But not one single one was yucky. I think Jamie's recipes are great Base recipes, you can fool around with them adding things and taking away other things so that it suits your taste. I especially LOVED the sections where he takes one particular dish and shows you how to change it up using the same base recipe. For example, Meat Pie, you can top it with puff pastry, mashed potato's etc . . . . I'm excited to try some more of his recipes.

The new Decor for the bedside table will be:

A

 Can't wait to get my paws on this, since Made From Scratch (pick #1) I've become really fascinated by Homesteading!

Another Homesteading Book, Scott and Helen Nearing are like the grandma and grandpa of Homesteading and I've been told that if your researching homesteading this one is a MUST read.

So there's my picks, as well as my future picks. If anyone has any suggestions for future reads I would LOVE to hear them. You all are like friends and know me well by now, so if you think I'd like it, I probably would :)
I hope you found something you'd like to read! Wishing you a great Thursday!