The joys of buying second hand books, hidden gems and a second life!

My 3 book stack!

I never thought about writing up and sharing what books i'm reading but a nice gentle nudge from @riverflows and seeing what it was all about I thought why not. I’t also presented an opportunity for me encourage you all to visit a second hand, thrift or charity shop or even a yard sale etc and dig out some gems, and give them a second lease of life.

To start with i should probably point out that the last two books were bought from a local charity shop, I do like to go into them from time to time and see what books and bits and pieces they have that I can rehome or upcycle.

If you look at the prices of these books as well that were dirt cheap, which is also a great reason to check out the second hand/charity shops I paid roughly 10% of the recommended retail price which is great

One thing I often do is leave the stickers on with the lot number/price so that when I’m finished with the book i can just and it back to the shop meaning that some other person gets to enjoy the book and the charity gets another donation etc.

This makes me happy on so many level’s and ticks a lot of boxes from recycling, reducing excessive consumerism, helping others in need and giving back to the community.

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The three books I'm looking at at the moment are

Herb reference thingy

Grow your own drugs

Farmageddon

Herb reference

So let's start with the book that i’m in the most at the momenet, it's not so much of a cover to cover read sort of book but it's a great book to flick through and look for great looking plants/herbs and seeing what other uses they can be put to.

A great example was @thelaundrylady did an amazing post of the uses of the Comfrey plant, you should check it out if you haven't already

https://steemit.com/gardening/@thelaundrylady/do-you-want-to-make-your-own-natural-liquid-fertilizer-one-that-is-especially-rich-in-potassium-and-perfect-to-encourage-flowers

I actually already have comfrey growing in the garden and use it for both mulches and a DIY feed as was mentioned but one thing I hadn't thought of that was mentioned was its medicinal purposes.

Cue flicking through to page 102 and I'm met with great info on the comfrey plant and a list of its medicinal uses. I wasn't expecting to see warnings for carcinogens but life has taught me to cross reference everything as new information comes out all the time and sometimes research is wrong, so i'll be looking into that one before making a comfrey salad 😜

If your in the UK or Europe and have an interest in growing/foraging it could be well worth adding to your bookshelf!

Grow your own drugs

To be totally honest i’ve been a bit disappointed with this book, visually it is very appealing with some stunning photos throughout but it's a bit light on the information for my liking, they seem to have played it very safe with the recipes inside and it very much screams “hipster” for some reason

If i had paid full price on this one i would of been a bit more disappointed as I bought it to learn not look at nice pleasing pictures, also the only element of “grow” seems to be the odd mention here and there which was a shame as that was one of the key bits that attracted me to it.

It's only saying grace is that it has about 5 pages in it on how to make things like cremes, tinctures and lotions and this has sparked my curiosity to investigate this further as a means to reduce the reliance on big pharma products that may not even be needed.

So for £2.50 i can’t complain as it has given me an insight into what i need to buy to do this and a better direction to head in.

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Farmageddon

I’ve only just read the back on this one and the first few pages to get a feel of what it’s about and to summarise it, I’d be best just typing up some of the blurb on the back, i am looking forward to sitting down with this one!

“Farmageddon lifts the veil of secrecy to reveal exactly what is going down on the farm and on the supermarket shelf . cutting through both the corporate rhetoric and the government misinformation , it lays bare the dark culture that permeates biotechnology as well as who stands to benefit from this faustian tinkering with the very stuff of life. Unashamedly critical, Farmageddon deals head on with the 21st century equivalent of the nuclear industry. It also demonstrates that biotechnology can resisted, appealing to all who value healthy food and a healthy society”

Which is me, and it ties back to my belief in that GMO and aggressively farmed monocropping is a bad direction to go, one thing i really love about my garden is that its organic as far as possible (some of the seeds/plants weren’t organic certified) no hybrids/F1 only heirloom types where possible. I just wish more people would get over the thought of a wonky carrot or scabby potato as being a bad thing and just enjoy them for their taste.

Once I'm finished with the last two books I'll be restarting the cycle by donating the books back and hopefully picking up a couple more to sit down and enjoy

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Massive thanks to @riverflows for this one as it makes a change from the usual things I post about and I may start adding in the odd book review here and there as I work through them.

Best of luck every and I can’t wait to see what gems your reading!

If you like the sound of this there's still 7 days to enter, check out the link below.

https://steemit.com/books/@riverflows/show-me-your-stack-3-books-plus-a-chance-to-win-sbd

All the best

Dan