Foundations of Self-Reliance
What a household used to know how to do
Twenty-five short, practical books on water, food, sanitation, remedies, animals, energy, and shelter. Written to hold up where help is a long way off, with every safety figure checked, and yours to keep on any device you read on.
Short, practical, and checked
- New books, not old ones reprinted.They were written in 2026. Each was drafted with AI, then edited and checked. Every safety figure in all 25 sits in one register, so no two books give you different numbers for the same thing, and the published works consulted in checking them are listed at the back of each book.
- Short on purpose.Each one covers one subject properly in 3,500 to 9,000 words, a 15 to 45 minute read. The length of every book is on its card.
- Written for wherever you are.Measurements come in both systems. Where a figure depends on your climate, your ground, or your local law, you get the method for working it out rather than one country's number.
- Honest about the limits.Every book says plainly what its methods can and can't do, and when a problem has outgrown home care.
Six books
Herbal Remedies
Six books on preparing and using plants for the everyday complaints a household meets: the methods themselves, then digestion, coughs and colds, immune support, skin and minor wounds, and sleep, stress, and aches. Every herb comes with how it works, how to prepare it, and who should be careful, and every book is plain about what a remedy can't do.
US$19
Home Herbal Preparation: Infusions, Decoctions, Tinctures, and Salves
About 4,000 words, about a 20-minute read.
Every home remedy starts with the method that turns a plant into something you can use. This book covers the core ones: infusions and decoctions for teas, tinctures for stronger extracts that keep, poultices, and salves for the skin, along with cold infusions, syrups, and oxymels. It also covers the quieter skills that decide how good a remedy turns out: harvesting and drying, storing herbs so they keep their strength, measuring sensible doses, and patch testing. Every other remedy on this shelf rests on it.
US$5
Herbal Remedies for Digestive Complaints
About 4,500 words, about a 20-minute read.
Four dependable herbs for the stomach troubles every household meets, and why they don't all work the same way: peppermint for a cramping gut, ginger for nausea, chamomile to soothe and settle, and fennel for trapped wind. For each you get what the plant is, how it works, how to prepare it, and who should be careful, plus a blend for cramping and how to grow your own. It's plain about which symptoms are more than a tea can settle.
US$5
Herbal Remedies for Coughs and Respiratory Complaints
About 4,000 words, about a 20-minute read.
Five plants for the cough, the raw throat, and the blocked chest of an ordinary cold: thyme to loosen and calm a cough, elderberry at the first sign of a cold, mullein for a dry, irritated throat, liquorice root to coat and settle, and eucalyptus as steam. It explains how to tell a dry cough from a chesty one, how to prepare each herb, and the real limits on liquorice and eucalyptus, and it's clear about when breathing needs more than a remedy.
US$5
Herbal Remedies for Immune Support
About 4,000 words, about a 20-minute read.
Four herbs with a long record of use when illness is going around: echinacea, astragalus, garlic, and rosehip. Some are for the day a cold arrives, taken in short bursts; others are tonics taken steadily over weeks to build resilience. This book shows which is which, how to prepare each one, how to build a simple seasonal routine, and how to judge quality when you buy. Its cautions cover medicines and existing conditions, so read them as closely as the recipes.
US$5
Herbal Remedies for Skin, Minor Wounds, and First Aid
About 4,000 words, about a 20-minute read.
A small first-aid kit from the garden for grazes, sunburn, bites, and sore skin: calendula for minor cuts, aloe vera for burns and sunburn, plantain for bites and scrapes, and witch hazel for redness and swelling. It covers cleaning and dressing a minor wound properly, and the judgement that counts most in home wound care: telling ordinary healing from an infection that needs more than a salve. It's for minor, surface problems, and it says plainly which ones aren't.
US$5
Herbal Remedies for Sleep, Stress, and Minor Pain
About 4,000 words, about a 20-minute read.
Gentle herbs for a mind too busy to rest and a body that aches. The first half covers valerian, lemon balm, passionflower, and lavender for tension and sleep, with an evening wind-down. The second covers turmeric, willow bark, devil's claw, and arnica for everyday aches and stiffness. These herbs interact more than most, with sedatives, alcohol, and blood thinners, so the cautions get as much room as the preparations.
US$5
Seven books
Animal Husbandry
Seven books on keeping animals well: the daily foundations every keeper needs, then chickens, ducks and other waterfowl, rabbits, goats, pigs, and bees. Each one stands on its own, covering housing, feeding, breeding, health, and the seasons, and each shows how to manage without mains power.
US$19
Foundations of Smallholding Care
About 5,500 words, about a 30-minute read.
The daily habits that keep any animal well: dry shelter, clean water, a steady routine, calm handling, and disease kept out. Get these right and most trouble never starts. This book sets out those foundations, then the systems that hold them together without mains power: gravity-fed water, fencing and predator protection, feed storage, simple first aid, manure and composting, and care through the seasons. Start here if you're new to keeping stock.
US$5
Keeping Chickens
About 4,000 words, about a 20-minute read.
Chickens are the usual first step into livestock, and a small flock turns scraps, grain, and foraging into eggs and meat with little fuss. This book covers the daily routine, housing and space, feeding, laying, breeding and chick care, and the common health problems and how to prevent them. Then it turns to choosing a breed, protecting the flock from predators, moulting, winter and heat, and keeping chickens without mains power.
US$5
Keeping Ducks and Other Waterfowl
About 3,500 words, about a 15-minute read.
Ducks lay well, forage hard, clear slugs as they go, and shrug off weather a chicken would sicken in. What sets them apart is water: they need enough to submerge their heads, and they make more mess with it than any other bird. This book covers getting the water right, then housing, feeding, eggs and meat, breeding and ducklings, health, how they differ from chickens, and keeping them through winter and off grid.
US$5
Keeping Rabbits
About 3,500 words, about a 20-minute read.
Rabbits turn hay and greens into meat and fibre quietly, in less space than almost any other stock. They're also prey animals that hide illness until it's nearly too late, so they reward a keeper who looks closely every day. This book covers housing, diet, breeding and kit care, meat and fibre, the problems to catch early (teeth, snuffles, and flystrike), handling, hygiene, and keeping disease out.
US$5
Keeping Goats
About 4,000 words, about a 20-minute read.
Goats give milk, meat, and cleared brush from ground too rough for other stock. They're browsers rather than grazers, herd animals that fret alone, and escape artists that test every fence, and most of goat-keeping follows from those three facts. This book covers housing and fencing, feeding, milking, kidding and raising kids, parasites, mastitis, and lameness, pasture and water, and care through the seasons.
US$5
Keeping Pigs
About 4,500 words, about a 25-minute read.
Pigs are the strongest and cleverest animals most smallholders keep, and both facts shape their care: they root, push, and solve problems, and they need work for their minds as much as food. This book covers housing and rooting, feeding and growth, kitchen waste (the law, the reason, and the old method), breeding, farrowing, and piglet care, then fencing, water, feed stored away from rodents, and keeping pigs off grid.
US$5
Keeping Bees
About 4,500 words, about a 20-minute read.
Bees are unlike any other animal you'll keep. You don't feed or house them daily: you provide the right conditions, let a colony of tens of thousands run itself, and take a share of the honey beyond its own needs. This book covers the seasonal round, placing the hive, feeding, harvesting honey responsibly, swarming, pests and disease, choosing a colony, overwintering and requeening, and calm handling.
US$5
Six books
Health & Sanitation
Six longer books on the practices that keep a household from getting sick, and that carry it through when someone does: clean water, human waste and sanitation, food hygiene without a fridge, hygiene when water is scarce, pests and the diseases they carry, and caring for the sick and injured at home.
US$19
Finding, Treating, and Storing Clean Water
About 7,500 words, about a 35-minute read.
Almost every other practice in this library rests on safe water, and safe water is never something you're handed and can stop thinking about. This book covers the whole chain in the order you meet it: the four sources a household draws on and what each carries, reading water quality, collecting and storing it, and how much you need. Then it treats water by boiling, settling and filtering, sunlight, and chemicals, and keeps it safe once treated.
US$5
Human Waste and Sanitation: Latrines, Greywater, and Safe Disposal
About 9,000 words, about a 45-minute read.
Much illness has come not from a shortage of remedies but from waste finding its way back into water and food, and this book sets out how to keep them apart. It covers siting a latrine, the decision that counts for more than all the others, then digging, lining, venting, and covering it, composting toilets, greywater, solid household waste, and soak-aways. The whole discipline comes down to distance, direction, and depth, and the book explains each.
US$5
Food Hygiene and Safe Storage Without Refrigeration
About 9,000 words, about a 45-minute read.
Keeping food safe comes down to time and temperature, and every method in this book reaches a safe state without a machine. It covers handling first: hand hygiene, keeping raw meat apart, and the internal temperatures that make food safe, with how to judge them without a thermometer. Then keeping food: cooling it fast, evaporative coolers and cellars, drying, salting, and smoking, and reading spoilage honestly. It treats rare steak as a choice with conditions, not a sin.
US$5
Everyday Hygiene When Water Is Scarce
About 8,000 words, about a 40-minute read.
Soap, water, and twenty seconds of friction at the right moments return as much as anything in this library for as little, and this book shows how to keep that up on a small water budget. It covers handwashing in full and the cup-and-basin method, laundry and dishes by hand with the two-bucket system, wood ash when soap runs out, and keeping a home clean: airflow, sunlight on bedding, waste areas, pests, and bathing on a few litres.
US$5
Pests and Disease Vectors: Keeping Them Out of the Home
About 8,500 words, about a 45-minute read.
Pest control done well is denial: take away the water, food, and shelter that flies, mosquitoes, and rodents need, and their numbers fall without a chemical. This book covers what each pest carries and the controls that work, which are mostly physical: lids, screens, nets, sealed stores, and no standing water. The second half covers what to do when prevention hasn't held: the early signs of illness, monitoring, caring for someone in isolation at home, and the point where household care has been outrun.
US$5
Caring for the Sick and Injured at Home
About 8,000 words, about a 40-minute read.
Most illness resolves on its own, and the outcome usually turns on the quality of the nursing. This book covers wound care: flushing a contaminated wound, removing debris, dressing it, and telling healing from infection. Then it covers nursing someone through illness: rehydration in small, frequent amounts, food and rest, a sickroom that helps, infection control for the rest of the household, and the monitoring that shows deterioration early. It's precise about the limits of home care, without softening them.
US$5
Six books
Self Sufficiency
Six starter overviews of the systems a self-reliant household runs on: water, growing and gathering food, preserving the harvest, energy and heat off the grid, and keeping shelter dry and warm. The sixth puts them in the right order and paces the work.
US$19
Securing Your Own Water: Sources, Storage, and Treatment
About 4,000 words, about a 20-minute read.
Before shelter, food, or power, a household that means to stand on its own needs water it can count on and a way to make it safe. This starter overview covers the sources you can draw on and what each carries, how much you need and how to store it, harvesting rainwater within the law, treating water without power, and the warning signs to act on. For the full treatment, Finding, Treating, and Storing Clean Water on the Health & Sanitation shelf goes further.
US$5
Growing and Gathering Your Own Food: A Practical Starting Ground
About 4,500 words, about a 20-minute read.
Growing food starts with a small patch you can manage and the patience to read your own ground before you plan for it. This starter overview covers reading your site and starting in containers, building soil that feeds itself, choosing crops and keeping a harvest coming through the year, saving your own seed, keeping a few small animals, and foraging responsibly. It's written for a first season that succeeds, so the second can be bigger.
US$5
Preserving the Harvest: Drying, Fermenting, Canning, and Safe Storage
About 7,000 words, about a 35-minute read.
A harvest is a moment, and a household lives across a year. This book covers the methods most worth a beginner's time: drying, salting and curing, fermenting, pickling and simple preserves, canning, and storing food without a fridge. It's exact where preservation is unforgiving: which salts are which, the one line you never cross with canning, and the processing times with the edition they come from. Start with small batches you can afford to lose.
US$5
Energy and Heat Off the Grid: Generating and Using Your Own Power
About 5,000 words, about a 25-minute read.
This book assumes your power may be yours to generate, from the sun, wind, water, or wood you actually have. It starts with the two ideas that save the most money: use less before you generate more, and know the difference between power and energy. Then it covers measuring your load, comparing sources, batteries, heat and cooking without power, and working safely. It's a starter overview, not a wiring guide, and it says where the work becomes an electrician's.
US$5
Keeping Shelter Dry, Warm, and Sound
About 4,000 words, about a 20-minute read.
The slow enemy of every building is water, not cold. Damp rots timber, breeds mould, and ruins the insulation meant to keep you warm, so the order of work is fixed: keep the water out, hold the heat in, and check often enough to catch small faults while they're cheap. This starter overview covers how water gets in and how to stop it, holding heat, a maintenance rhythm, emergency readiness, and knowing when a structural job has outgrown you.
US$5
Skills, Planning, and Priorities: Building Self-Sufficiency in the Right Order
About 5,000 words, about a 25-minute read.
Self-sufficiency fails more often from disorder than from lack of effort. This book is about order and pace: an honest inventory of what you already have, the pillars in the order that keeps a household standing, a 90-day primer, five project tracks, budgeting time and money, and learning from the people already doing it near you. It ties the other five books on this shelf into one plan.
US$5
One book, US$5. The books on one shelf, US$19. All 25 books, US$49. Prices are in US dollars, and include GST for buyers in Australia.
Questions
- How long are the books?
- Between about 3,500 and 9,000 words. The herbal remedies, animal husbandry, and most of the self sufficiency books run 3,500 to 5,500 words, a 15 to 30 minute read. The health and sanitation books run 7,500 to 9,000 words, 35 to 45 minutes.
- Will it open on my device?
- Yes, on any phone, tablet, or computer with a reading app. Apple Books, Google Play Books, and Kobo open ePubs directly. For a Kindle, use Amazon's Send to Kindle.
- How do I get the books?
- As soon as your payment confirms, a private download link arrives by email.
- Is there a print edition?
- No. These are ePubs.
- Is this medical or veterinary advice?
- No. The books are general education. Each one says so, and each sets out when a problem needs more than home care.
Foundations of Self-Reliance
All 25 books
These 25 books in one purchase: the six on herbal remedies, the seven on animal husbandry, the six on health and sanitation, and the six on self sufficiency.
US$49
Pass it on. Buy all 25 books between 12.00am Friday 27 and 11.59pm Monday 30 November 2026, Brisbane time (2.00pm UTC Thursday 26 to 1.59pm UTC Monday 30 November), and you get a second set of the same 25 to give to someone. It comes as its own link in your delivery email, for you to pass on.
Launch price: all 25 books for US$25, the price of five single books, until 11.59pm Brisbane time on Sunday 22 November 2026, which is 1.59pm UTC: Sunday morning in the Americas, Sunday afternoon in Europe. After that, the 25 are US$49.