Oh, I have quite a few favorites! 

Noel Perrin's First Person Rural plus Second Person Rural and Third Person Rural are all great reads — they're made up of chapters which I think started out as essays (perhaps written for Harrowsmith's Country Life magazine?) about small-scale farming in New England.

And anything by Gene Logsdon is a favorite — he has some how-to books as well as collected essays.  For example, his Two Acre Eden is more of a how-to and At Nature's Pace is a collection of essays about the American family farm. 

Made from Scratch is a newer one about a woman starting out.  Have more if you're interested…

Yes, I am and I also use PaperBackSwap as a good source for used books. 

Jenna W. is the author of the Made from Scratch book to which I referred.  I bet there are a lot of books with that title!

Perrin's books I mentioned are probably dated from the '70s so might be harder to find at some libraries. 

There's another author of small town essays/books, Michael Perry, who I really enjoy.  His latest is titled Coop: A year of poultry, pigs, and parenting. (Alternate title – Coop: A family, a farm and the pursuit of one good egg)

Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish was a fun yet moving story of the author's childhood.

This one is a "warts-and-all" story (starting in the early '40s) but I hated to see it end:  Eggs in the Coffee, Sheep in the Corn: My 17 years as a farmwife by Marjorie M. Douglas

And I always consider Betty MacDonald's book, The Egg and I, to be the one that probably started me on the path of loving country living-type books.  And her Onions in the Stew is good, too.  (Actually I think I like all her books — even the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle stories…)

Have you ever seen Reminisce magazine? (is/was part of the Reiman publishing group that include Taste of Home and Country Woman magazines)  This book was one I read after I saw a review that compared it to that magazine — Walking Beans Wasn't Something You Did With Your Dog: Stories of growing up in and around small towns in the Midwest.  It made me laugh and smile and nod my head, just like Reminisce… And I'm from VA.

The Dirty Life: A memoir of farming, food and love by Kristin Kimball, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and Robin Mather's The Feast Nearby: How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally (all on $40 a week) are all sort of country living books but touch more on locavore and CSA subjects.

Growing up Country: Memories of an Iowa farm girl and these two by Catherine Friend, Hit by a Farm: How I learned to stop worrying and love the barn and Sheepish: Two women, fifty sheep, and enough wool to save the planet are on my list to read if I can find them at a library or thru PaperBackSwap.

Someplace I have a great book that's a collection of interviews with American farm women from the early 20th century — they're interviewed in the '70s, I think, about their lives raising families, farming, etc.  It and another book on women of the west (same sort of format but emphasis on late 1800s) are wonderful to read — very heartwarming tho not all the stories are happy, of course.  Always makes me feel warm and fuzzy when I read them, tho.  Still searching to find the titles and will post if/when I do.  Think they might be at my mom's…

Never fails…

Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier by Joanna Stratton is the western one I mentioned above.  Still looking for the farm wives one

I have this one and it is definitely a good read.  My 10 year old granddaughter read part of it this summer.  She is developing an interest in history.

I just placed a bunch of holds at the library. :)

You know, I rarely think to recommend one of Joel Salatin's books but I should.  He has written several excellent guides to raising pastured livestock — You can farm is a great how-to and especially good for small-scale farmers who want to sell locally.

We were just at Polyface this past weekend for a picnic with our homeschool group (the Salatins are past members and kindly host a hayride/farm tour plus potluck picnic every year) and everyone was talking about the new book that was coming out on Monday.  I can't wait to read it!  I really liked Holy cows and hog heaven as well as Everything I want to do is illegal — neither are exactly how-to or farming books but they're full of Joel's take on farming in today's world.

Well, I can see that I am not alone in saving cooking magazines and collect cookbooks. 

JoJo, could you donate some of the older cookbooks to a museum… I think our fairgrounds has a museum or some kind of display of historical items.

I'm reading It's a long road to a tomato: tales of an organic farmer who quit the big city for the (not so) simple life  by Keith Stewart.  I really like it.