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Making Home: Adapting Our Homes and Our Lives to Settle in Place
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Other books tell us how to live the good life—but you might have to win the lottery to do it. Making Home is about improving life with the real people around us and the resources we already have. While encouraging us to be more resilient in the face of hard times, author Sharon Astyk also points out the beauty, grace, and elegance that result, because getting the most out
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Paperback, 336 pages
Published
August 28th 2012
by New Society Publishers
(first published July 17th 2012)
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Start your review of Making Home: Adapting Our Homes and Our Lives to Settle in Place
Sep 28, 2012
Julie
rated it
it was amazing
Recommends it for:
anyone concerned about preparing for changes in the future
Note: I received this book for free after winning a contest on Ms. Astyk's blog.
I never expected Making Home to be as perspective-changing as Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front, which really rocked my world, pardon the cliche. This book comes very, very close. Sharon Astyk's insights into American culture were fascinating. I am continually struck by her very no-nonsense, practical reaction to the challenges the world faces in the coming decades. Her arguments seem to me to be pa ...more
I never expected Making Home to be as perspective-changing as Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front, which really rocked my world, pardon the cliche. This book comes very, very close. Sharon Astyk's insights into American culture were fascinating. I am continually struck by her very no-nonsense, practical reaction to the challenges the world faces in the coming decades. Her arguments seem to me to be pa ...more
This is an excellent book with very timely (Hurricane Sandy--this week) and wise advice. I admire all that Ms Astyk and her family have accomplished.
However, I do have one comment. Ms Astyk seems to be very negative if not downright hostile toward dogs. I wonder if she had a bad experience at some time in her life? I feel very angry about her attitude and incorrect information.
Examples:
"Dogs are more dangerous than any livestock." Incorrect!!! Anyone who has lived around horses will affirm that ...more
However, I do have one comment. Ms Astyk seems to be very negative if not downright hostile toward dogs. I wonder if she had a bad experience at some time in her life? I feel very angry about her attitude and incorrect information.
Examples:
"Dogs are more dangerous than any livestock." Incorrect!!! Anyone who has lived around horses will affirm that ...more
I assumed I would love this, but I thought it would be more how-to and less ranty narrative. I even agree with many of her political views, etc, but I hate being beat to death with someone's politics when all I really want to do is learn more about improving my home and self-sufficiency. Perhaps if I were approaching this subject anew, I would have enjoyed it, but I already have (what I feel are) solid reasons for pursuing greater self-sufficiency at home, so it just annoyed me. I thought this w
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This was not as good as I remember Depletion and Abundance to be, but it was still an inspiring and informative read by a favorite of mine. She walks a pleasant line between hippie homesteader and Prepper and, I think, easily appeals to the sensibilities of both with her pragmatic, easy style. Complaints about this book: it could have benefited from another round or two of copy editing (too many grammatical errors to feel "finished," and some fact-checking issues); also, they seem to have left o
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I just knew I was going to love this book. I agree so wholehearted with her premise of adapting our lives where we are, with what we have. I should have loved this book. But I didn't. I found it gratingly wordy with not one useful thing that I can apply in my life. Maybe it is written for people who are much younger and who have just begun to think about how climate change, population, and the ongoing financial crisis will affect them and how they can respond. Secondly, it so general that there
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Began this a number of years ago when I was going to a transition book group but life got in the way and I dropped from the group and never finished the book ... until now! My public library remains closed and I am forced to read my own books so working on finishing all the lingering half-reads. I am glad I got back to this!
Astyk goes step by step through all the things a person needs to consider when facing up to a peak oil climate change world. And she really does cover everything. This is not ...more
Astyk goes step by step through all the things a person needs to consider when facing up to a peak oil climate change world. And she really does cover everything. This is not ...more
I should state at the outset that I had the e-book version of this, which automatically reduces the amount of attention I'm willing to give to a title. I didn't manage to get very far into this book at all, because what I did read was just a long thesis on why conservation and preservation is important to embrace and how our society is or is not doing so. I am already convinced that conserving energy is imperative to the survival of our earth, or else I would not have chosen to read this. Unfort
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While at times awfully dang smug, this is overall a terrific read. Astyk wants us to prepare for the poverty that will come when our economy and our environment tank out on us in the all-too-near future. Reading this in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma was kind of spooky.
One thing this book does better than a lot of homesteading-for-the-future books is address aging, caregiving, and community issues. There's lots to chew on in this book, and I expect to revisit it again before too lon ...more
One thing this book does better than a lot of homesteading-for-the-future books is address aging, caregiving, and community issues. There's lots to chew on in this book, and I expect to revisit it again before too lon ...more
This book falls into a category I'd like to call: "I'm going into detail, but without giving too much detail".
It wasn't a bad book at all, but I'm not sure I gain a lot. She mentions a few times she's diving deeper into chapters in her other book, so I'm going to pick it up. ...more
It wasn't a bad book at all, but I'm not sure I gain a lot. She mentions a few times she's diving deeper into chapters in her other book, so I'm going to pick it up. ...more
A lot of really practical advice for adapting and making eco friendly changes and embracing community.
In Making Home Adapting Our Homes and Our Lives to Settle in Place, Shannon Astyk invites us to practice a new way of life that we both need and will inevitably be forced to acquire. She calls this new way of life “adapting in place” and bluntly describes it as “the only thing left that can save the world.”
...read the full review here! ...more
...read the full review here! ...more
A book both inspiring and frightening, Astyk talks in detail about what she has termed 'adapting in place.' Making your home a place of comfort and refuge and support should the worst happen, whether that is a week-long power outage or a total collapse of the economy. Powerfully written in a clear, no-nonsense voice Astyke outlines steps that can be taken now, plans that can be made, practiced and enacted and the difficult conversations that need to be had. This will certainly be a book that I r
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Parts of Making Home are thought-provoking or informative, while other parts are scattered and/or reprint information I've already read on her blog. Despite her own advice to bring sustainability to your family in fun ways, Astyk pushes peak oil and doom and gloom pretty hard. On the other hand, she definitely walks the walk, and has lots of low-cost, useful advice. (Did you know four-poster beds were a way to keep warm at night with minimal heat? Just hang cloth over the sides and top.)
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Sharon has written a few useful books that provide advice, more philosophical than practical details, on how to build roots in a place and adapt our homes and talents to survive in an uncertain future.
4/7/13-5/21/13
Personal look at adapting to a changing reality, strengthening neighborhood ties and developing a skill set. Somewhat slow in the middle.
Mar 10, 2014
Mary
added it
Very informative.
Ranty, overly professorial, not easily applicable to my life. Pass on this one.
Nov 23, 2012
Martha
added it
read again in Mar 2016
Oct 15, 2014
Trace
marked it as to-read
Adding this back to my to-read list because it was due back at the library. I'm really enjoying it though - and don't want to forget about it!
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I love everything that has been written by Sharon Astyk. I read this book every year or so to remember all of the excellent advice.
A great read. Astyk finds a way to balance out the doomsday visions of our energy-less future with pragmatic actions we can take today that will make life better today and in the darker future.
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Sharon Astyk is a writer, teacher, blogger, and farmer who raises vegetables, poultry and dairy goats with her family in upstate New York. She and her family use 80% less energy and resources than the average American household. Sharon is a member of the Board of Directors of ASPO-USA and the award-winning author of three previous books including Depletion and Abundance and Independence Days.
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Kerine Wint is a software engineering graduate with more love for books than for computers. As an avid reader, writer, and fan of all things...
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