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Books For and
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Read any good books by or for women lately? Doesn't even have to be about women in ag--all we ask is that you share a title and, if you're so inclined, some thoughts on the book.
Books for Women in Agriculture
(And a link for each title to a small, independent, woman-owned Iowa bookstore to order them from. If you don't want to order from our favorite indie bookstore, please buy it from your own favorite indie bookstore!)
Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us about Health and Healing by Daphne Miller
What can good farming teach us about nurturing ourselves?
Family physician Daphne Miller long suspected that farming and medicine were intimately linked. Increasingly disillusioned by mainstream medicine's mechanistic approach to healing and fascinated by the farming revolution that is changing the way we think about our relationship to the earth, Miller left her medical office and traveled to seven innovative family farms around the country, on a quest to discover the hidden connections between how we care for our bodies and how we grow our food. Farmacology, the remarkable book that emerged from her travels, offers us a compelling new vision for sustainable health and healing--and a wealth of farm-to-body lessons with immense value in our daily lives.
Order it here:
What can good farming teach us about nurturing ourselves?
Family physician Daphne Miller long suspected that farming and medicine were intimately linked. Increasingly disillusioned by mainstream medicine's mechanistic approach to healing and fascinated by the farming revolution that is changing the way we think about our relationship to the earth, Miller left her medical office and traveled to seven innovative family farms around the country, on a quest to discover the hidden connections between how we care for our bodies and how we grow our food. Farmacology, the remarkable book that emerged from her travels, offers us a compelling new vision for sustainable health and healing--and a wealth of farm-to-body lessons with immense value in our daily lives.
Order it here:
Field Exercises: How Veterans Are Healing Themselves Through Farming and Outdoor Activities by Stephanie Westlund
"Field Exercises: How Veterans Are Healing Themselves through Farming and Outdoor Activities" shares the compelling stories of men and women who are finding relief from stressful and traumatic military experiences, while also establishing community networks and other peer support initiatives. Stephanie Westlund examines:
Order it here:
"Field Exercises: How Veterans Are Healing Themselves through Farming and Outdoor Activities" shares the compelling stories of men and women who are finding relief from stressful and traumatic military experiences, while also establishing community networks and other peer support initiatives. Stephanie Westlund examines:
- The deep and far-reaching connections between nature and human health
- The tremendous impact of stress and trauma on survivors' lives
- Resources and groups providing opportunities in the emerging field of "Green Care."
Order it here:
The Dirty Life: On Farm, Food, and Love by Kristen Kimball
Single, thirtysomething, working as a writer in New York City, Kristin Kimball was living life as an adventure. But she was beginning to feel a sense of longing for a family and for home. When she interviewed a dynamic young farmer, her world changed. Kristin knew nothing about growing vegetables, let alone raising pigs and cattle and driving horses. But on an impulse, smitten, if not yet in love, she shed her city self and moved to five hundred acres near Lake Champlain to start a new farm with him. The Dirty Life is the captivating chronicle of their first year on Essex Farm, from the cold North Country winter through the following harvest season—complete with their wedding in the loft of the barn.
Order it here:
Single, thirtysomething, working as a writer in New York City, Kristin Kimball was living life as an adventure. But she was beginning to feel a sense of longing for a family and for home. When she interviewed a dynamic young farmer, her world changed. Kristin knew nothing about growing vegetables, let alone raising pigs and cattle and driving horses. But on an impulse, smitten, if not yet in love, she shed her city self and moved to five hundred acres near Lake Champlain to start a new farm with him. The Dirty Life is the captivating chronicle of their first year on Essex Farm, from the cold North Country winter through the following harvest season—complete with their wedding in the loft of the barn.
Order it here:
On Behalf of the Family Farm: Iowa Farm Women's Activism Since 1945, by Jenny Barker Divine
“Devine redefines Midwestern farm women’s activism after World War II by tracing the subtle and powerful shifts in gender relationships in rural America. On Behalf of the Family Farm brings a fresh look at the complexities of how farm women shaped their organizations, claimed public space, and redefined their identities.”—Carolyn Sachs, Pennsylvania State University
Order it here:
“Devine redefines Midwestern farm women’s activism after World War II by tracing the subtle and powerful shifts in gender relationships in rural America. On Behalf of the Family Farm brings a fresh look at the complexities of how farm women shaped their organizations, claimed public space, and redefined their identities.”—Carolyn Sachs, Pennsylvania State University
Order it here:
Humane Livestock Handling, by Temple Grandin and Mark Deesing
Temple Grandin, North America's most influential advocate of humane livestock treatment, has spent her life developing stress-free facility designs and standards of humane management. In an environment of growing concern regarding large factory-farming practices, Grandin is a voice of reason explaining the benefits of keeping animals calm through every phase of their lives — benefits that include safer working conditions, higher yields of marketable meat, better-quality meat, and, of course, more humane conditions for the animals.
Temple Grandin's systems are quickly becoming the industry-wide standard. No livestock operation, small or large, can afford to ignore Humane Livestock Handling.
Order it here:
Temple Grandin, North America's most influential advocate of humane livestock treatment, has spent her life developing stress-free facility designs and standards of humane management. In an environment of growing concern regarding large factory-farming practices, Grandin is a voice of reason explaining the benefits of keeping animals calm through every phase of their lives — benefits that include safer working conditions, higher yields of marketable meat, better-quality meat, and, of course, more humane conditions for the animals.
Temple Grandin's systems are quickly becoming the industry-wide standard. No livestock operation, small or large, can afford to ignore Humane Livestock Handling.
Order it here:
Beeconomy: What Women and Bees Can Teach Us about Local Trade and the Global Market, by Tammy Horn
Queen bee. Worker bees. Busy as a bee. These phrases have shaped perceptions of women for centuries, but how did these stereotypes begin? Who are the women who keep bees and what can we learn from them? Beeconomy examines the fascinating evolution of the relationship between women and bees around the world.
Order it here:
Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn, by Catherine Friend
Farms have fences. People have boundaries. Mine began crumbling the day I knelt behind a male sheep, reached between his legs, and squeezed his testicles. This took place one blustery November day when I joined other shepherd-wannabees for a class on the basics of raising sheep. I was there with my partner Melissa, the woman I’d lived with for twelve years, because we were going to start a farm .
When self-confessed “urban bookworm” Catherine Friend’s partner of twelve years decides she wants to fulfill her lifelong dream of owning a farm, Catherine agrees. What ensues is a crash course in both living off and with the land that ultimately allows Catherine to help fulfill Melissa’s dreams while not losing sight of her own.
Hit by a Farm is a hilarious recounting of Catherine and Melissa’s trials of “getting back to the land.” It is also a coming-of (middle)-age story of a woman trying to cross the divide between who she is and who she wants to be, and the story of a couple who say “goodbye city life” — and learn more than they ever bargained for about love, land, and yes, sheep sex.
Order it here:
Farms have fences. People have boundaries. Mine began crumbling the day I knelt behind a male sheep, reached between his legs, and squeezed his testicles. This took place one blustery November day when I joined other shepherd-wannabees for a class on the basics of raising sheep. I was there with my partner Melissa, the woman I’d lived with for twelve years, because we were going to start a farm .
When self-confessed “urban bookworm” Catherine Friend’s partner of twelve years decides she wants to fulfill her lifelong dream of owning a farm, Catherine agrees. What ensues is a crash course in both living off and with the land that ultimately allows Catherine to help fulfill Melissa’s dreams while not losing sight of her own.
Hit by a Farm is a hilarious recounting of Catherine and Melissa’s trials of “getting back to the land.” It is also a coming-of (middle)-age story of a woman trying to cross the divide between who she is and who she wants to be, and the story of a couple who say “goodbye city life” — and learn more than they ever bargained for about love, land, and yes, sheep sex.
Order it here:
Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the Planet, by Catherine Friend
From the author of Hit By a Farm--a "charming memoir...[with]magical moments" (New York Times Book Review)--comes a hilarious solution to the planet's environmental woes: sheep!
Order it here:
From the author of Hit By a Farm--a "charming memoir...[with]magical moments" (New York Times Book Review)--comes a hilarious solution to the planet's environmental woes: sheep!
Order it here:
The Call of the Farm: An Unexpected Year of Getting Dirty, Home Cooking, and Finding Myself, by Rochelle Bilow
Rochelle Bilow, a classically trained cook and aspiring food writer, was nursing a broken heart and frustrated with her yet-to-take-off career when she set out to write a short profile of a small, sustainable CSA farm in central New York. At most, she expected to come away with a cute city-girl-in-the-country piece. But after just one day of moving hay bales, feeding pigs, and tapping maple sap, she was hooked: The air was fresh, her muscles felt useful, and the smells from the kitchen where the farmhands gathered at day's end were intoxicating.
Add in a sweet but enigmatic young farmer whose soulful gaze meets her own, and "The Call of the Farm" is set in motion. This enticing memoir charts the unexpected year that unfolds as Rochelle immerses herself in life at the farm. She cooks her way through four seasons of fresh-from-the-earth produce (with such tantalizing results as Blistered Tomato Gratin and Crisped Potato Casserole with Shaved Chives), grapples more than once with the finer points of rendering lard, and begins to feel she has finally found her niche--all while falling hard for that handsome, blue-eyed farmer.
Honest, self-aware, and wonderfully tender, "The Call of the Farm" is for anyone who has daydreamed about a simpler life--or fallen too deeply in love.
Order it here:
Rochelle Bilow, a classically trained cook and aspiring food writer, was nursing a broken heart and frustrated with her yet-to-take-off career when she set out to write a short profile of a small, sustainable CSA farm in central New York. At most, she expected to come away with a cute city-girl-in-the-country piece. But after just one day of moving hay bales, feeding pigs, and tapping maple sap, she was hooked: The air was fresh, her muscles felt useful, and the smells from the kitchen where the farmhands gathered at day's end were intoxicating.
Add in a sweet but enigmatic young farmer whose soulful gaze meets her own, and "The Call of the Farm" is set in motion. This enticing memoir charts the unexpected year that unfolds as Rochelle immerses herself in life at the farm. She cooks her way through four seasons of fresh-from-the-earth produce (with such tantalizing results as Blistered Tomato Gratin and Crisped Potato Casserole with Shaved Chives), grapples more than once with the finer points of rendering lard, and begins to feel she has finally found her niche--all while falling hard for that handsome, blue-eyed farmer.
Honest, self-aware, and wonderfully tender, "The Call of the Farm" is for anyone who has daydreamed about a simpler life--or fallen too deeply in love.
Order it here:
Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, by Novella Carpenter
"Easily the funniest, weirdest, most perversely provocative gardening book I've ever read. I couldn't put it down... The writing soars." --The New York Times Book Review
"Captivating... By turns edgy, moving, and hilarious, Farm City marks the debut of a striking new voice in American writing." --Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and Food Rules
"Fresh, fearless, and jagged around the edges, Ms. Carpenter's book... puts me in mind of Julie Powell's Julie & Julia and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love." --The New York Times
"Carpenter, with [her] humor and step-by-step clarity, make[s] it seem utterly possible to grow the kind of food you want to eat, wherever you live." --Los Angeles Times
Order it here:
"Easily the funniest, weirdest, most perversely provocative gardening book I've ever read. I couldn't put it down... The writing soars." --The New York Times Book Review
"Captivating... By turns edgy, moving, and hilarious, Farm City marks the debut of a striking new voice in American writing." --Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and Food Rules
"Fresh, fearless, and jagged around the edges, Ms. Carpenter's book... puts me in mind of Julie Powell's Julie & Julia and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love." --The New York Times
"Carpenter, with [her] humor and step-by-step clarity, make[s] it seem utterly possible to grow the kind of food you want to eat, wherever you live." --Los Angeles Times
Order it here:
