The Foxfire Book: Hog Dressing, Log Cabin Building, Mountain Crafts and Foods, Planting by the Signs, Snake Lore, Hunting Tales, Faith Healing, Moonshining
by Inc. Foxfire Fund
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 142)
Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
all you hunter-gatherer types, DIY kids, anachronists & storytellers...
Omigod! Read the interview with Aunt Arie if nothing else. Its amazing!
This book is a collection of oral histories, recipes, and handed-down knowledge of the elders in Rabun Gap, Georgia in the late 60s -- an area of Appalachia where the elders were still homesteading and living off the land, and the children were failing & dropping out of school at alarming rates. Eliot Wigginton, the highschool teacher who edited this book, decided very quickly to throw away his cirriculum and facili...more
This book is a collection of oral histories, recipes, and handed-down knowledge of the elders in Rabun Gap, Georgia in the late 60s -- an area of Appalachia where the elders were still homesteading and living off the land, and the children were failing & dropping out of school at alarming rates. Eliot Wigginton, the highschool teacher who edited this book, decided very quickly to throw away his cirriculum and facili...more
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Read in August, 2006
recommends it for:
everybody!
The Foxfire book is one of my favorite books. I picked it up on vacation in West Virginia and couldn't put it down! This is a compilation of a bunch of magazine articles done by a creative high school teacher in the mountains of Georgia in the 60's, who saw that the older generation of folks who had grown up around the turn of the century had an awful lot of knowledge that was about to die with them, and also saw that their television-watching grandkids felt almost no connection with their log...more
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Read in October, 2007
I love the idea of this book, but it is not the kind of book you read cover-to-cover. The majority of the book includes technical explanations in dialect of how to construct a log cabin or slaughter and prepare a hog. There were some interesting stories throughout the text. I liked the section on faith healing a lot and the sections devoted to individual people. The book needed more of those stories and less formal instruction on home remedies, perhaps an appendix for those sections.
The Fir...more
The Fir...more
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This book makes me want to run out and start building a cabin. All the fun, how-to details that I love about ANY book, and some interesting stories from people who grew up using all these skills. (The opening story is an interview with a lovely, spry woman who reminices about her life, all the while she's trying to pry the eyeballs out of a hogs head.) All of the books in this series are great, but I'm particularly fond of this first one. It even has step-by-step instructions on how to build a s...more
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The whole Foxfire collection is a must read. These are some of my all-time favorite books. So much so that I bought the collection for my father-in-law, who also feel in love with them. I was raised with growing up witnessing and hearing a lot about these 'old ways' of doing things. They have made me appreciate what many people take for granted. Take the time to read them, you will not be disapppointed.
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Read in October, 2007
recommended to Beth by:
Polly
My mom would get these books from the library when I was growing up. I had this vague recollection of them, and then Polly started talking about them and got me interested again.
I love that it takes place up in this part of the country. I love the know-how that less and less people now possess. I wish my life was a little bit simpler with time to learn and do more handcrafts.
These are so great...
I love that it takes place up in this part of the country. I love the know-how that less and less people now possess. I wish my life was a little bit simpler with time to learn and do more handcrafts.
These are so great...
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I used to read these growing up, and inherited the whole collection from my grandfather. Back then, I especially liked the "haint tales," told in almost-impenetrable vernacular. Now I enjoy everything, especially the interviews.
These were a major source of research for Cormac McCarthy (and who knows how many other authors) in the great time-before-the-internet.
These were a major source of research for Cormac McCarthy (and who knows how many other authors) in the great time-before-the-internet.
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I have all of the Foxfire books and they are wonderful for dipping-in and perusing. I feel that this will be a good book to share with my son as he gets older so that he can see how 'folks used to live' in these Appalachian mountains of ours. Educational...and I love the 'oral history' aspect of this series.
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I started reading this book a few years ago and never finished it, but I aim to. This book is extremely important in that it is one of the only written documentations on how people used to survive before modern conveniences came along. This olde way of life should never be lost or forgotten.
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Read in November, 2007
Instructions on how to make fine pure corn whiskey and tons of other practical appalachin knowledge. Interviews with amazing octogenarian hillbillies who lived off the land of Rabun County, Georgia in the early 70's. Wow! Need I say more?
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4 comments
This book was interesting to look at how everything was accomplished. Honestly being a city girl it was over whelming at times. I know we all do what we have to do to survive, but I wouldn't want to live this way today.
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Read in January, 1988
recommends it for:
Everyone
A wonderful book documenting a wonderful project that changed the lives of a lot of young people for the better. Also a lot of practical knowledge about various aspects of life in a mostly bygone era.
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recommends it for:
people who want to be self-sufficient and live sustainably
The Foxfire series is amazing. There are a lot of them, so a lot of information. But I have never gotten bored reading these books, and I have learned a lot from them. Everyone should read them.
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actually maybe the best thing. discovered the foxfire series on accident while living in the blue ridge mountains and was able to get a few copies of the magazines, too. fucking rad.
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Read in January, 1980
I have 4 of the foxfire books. They are helpful in knowing what happened way back, how folks lived, and survived. Lots of how-to here, and helpful to use in writing of those times.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
This is entertaining to read, and a great resource if your interested in moving to the deep hills of West Virginia, building your own cabin, and becoming a mountain man/woman
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I've looked through most of the Foxfire books, and read parts of some of them, but am amalgamating my reviews here in this one 5-star review.
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Read in January, 2005
i have to say i love me some foxfire, something fierce-you can't get any better than reading what old timer's have to say about anything
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Another of my first books!
...i always wanted to be a moonshiner
way back when...
someone else can dress the hog though : )
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not really too practical a guide for moonshining, but one of the best books for providing cultural background
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