My Favorite Books

Joel Salatin|April 12, 2022

Editor’s Note: The greatest minds in this world make a habit of reading. Books help us use the limited amount of time we have on this planet to make ourselves better, smarter, happier… and healthier. That’s why we’ve asked Joel – one of the greatest thinkers on the planet – to share some of the books that helped shape his worldview. Check them out below… and share which books have had the greatest impact on you with a note to mailbag@manwardpress.com.

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When asked to introduce folks to the four books most instrumental in shaping my thinking – next to the Bible – I name these four.

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey. Almost every day, I find one of Covey’s helpful ideas applicable to something I’m doing. Perhaps my two favorites are the metaphor of the emotional gas tank and the analogy of building a house.

The first has to do with putting enough equity into a relationship (filling the gas tank) so that you can make a withdrawal from time to time without the tank going empty.

I’m imperfect. Sometimes I say an unfit word, jump to a false conclusion or am less than charitable. All of those things suck gas out of the relationship tank. But if I’ve put enough fuel in that tank, it can handle some withdrawals. How true that is.

The second has to do with starting with the end in view. Business gurus describe this basic concept in many different ways. Some describe it as having a mission statement. Some describe it as WOTB (working on the business) rather than WITB (working in the business).

These concepts all dance around the same object – knowing your destination before you start the trip.

In Covey’s analogy, the house represents the end game. It starts in your imagination, then goes on paper as a sketch, and finally transforms into wood, nails and concrete. Most of us busily build without knowing what the house is going to look like. We often find it easier to pound nails than to decide whether we even need nails.

This is critical thinking for strategic planning.

The Complete Book of Composting by J.I. Rodale and staff. This 1,000-page compendium is the foundation for fertility and the true carbon economy. While you won’t find it in the “Environment” section, it is the most critical practical instruction guide on how soil, nature and, ultimately, planetary regeneration work. I refer to it routinely in my chemical-free farming.

Perhaps one of the most helpful sections is a multipage chart that gives the nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus levels – as well as the carbon-to-nitrogen ratios – of countless items.

If our culture had adhered to the instructions in this 1960 book, our nation would have diverted 75% of all landfill waste. Imagine that.

Roughly 75% of all landfill material is and has been compostable. To bury it and deny the soil the benefits of all that carbon decomposition should be classified as a crime against creation.

An Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard. Originally published in 1943, this book is considered the foundation of biological agriculture. Howard spent his scientific career in India while it was still under British rule. Although he was sent there to improve the country’s farming methods, he found its composting processes superior to anything Britain had to offer.

Operating the agricultural experiment station at Indore, a large Indian city, he called his model the “Indore Method.” He researched the ancient art of managed decomposition, tweaking its methods and creating the first formula for aerobic composting: carbon, nitrogen, water, oxygen and microbes.

At a time when the world desperately needed an answer to fertility, Howard supplied it.

His efforts went largely unappreciated, however, because the stockpiles of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus left over from ammunition manufacturing for World War II were far cheaper than handling biomass.

He was literally 20 years too early.

Had plastic pipe, four-wheel drive tractors with front-end loaders, chainsaws and chippers been available in 1943, the biological alternative to chemical fertility would have been more competitive.

As it was, however, the chemical approach gained ascendency, dominated the global food system and went largely unquestioned until the hippie movement of the early 1970s.

The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry. Considered by most scholars today as the beginning of the sustainable agriculture movement, this mid-’70s tome articulated the issues that defined the bloodbath occurring in farming communities. Berry’s eloquent prose targeted industrial agriculture in all its forms, from soil loss to farm bankruptcies and nutritional deficiencies.

Berry, a poet and literary genius, is now in his mid-80s and has nearly 60 books under his belt, including some of fiction. Few people write as beautifully or precisely as Berry… and he still works about three hours a day, with a No. 2 pencil, in a spiral notebook, in his studio perched atop a river, just downhill from his Kentucky home.

I’ve had the privilege of doing many speaking engagements with Wendell Berry. He’s as iconic in person as he is in his writing. He refuses to be recorded… and will not use an ink pen… yet he is the guide of authentic agriculture.

While I wouldn’t expect most folks to be as enamored with these three agriculture-focused books as I am, anyone who wants to be informed culturally and ecologically would benefit from diving into them.

Note: Join me in September at Polyface Farm as I host the Great Liberty Revival Retreat with Manward! We’ve got a lot of exciting things planned… including an extensive tour of our Polyface operations. Click here for all the details and to reserve your spot.