John Miedema

I received my copy of Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World by Helen and Scott Nearing. You may recall an earlier post where I said that this title would kick off my official back-to-the-land collection.

I am somewhat uncertain about how to handle this item. I do not intend to review it as I do the books I have just read, but I would like to say a few words about why I selected this item. At some point I should try to catalogue the item for my collection, but I have no standard practices yet.

I read Living The Good Life a few years ago. It is a practical book by Helen and Scott Nearing on living simply. They describe how they built their stone home and how they fed themselves off the land. The first edition was in 1954, long before the idea of going back-to-the-land was trendy in the sixties, and before it began to seem necessary in the oil crisis of the seventies. Scott Nearing was previously an economics professor who was blacklisted for his socialist views. The couple undertook a simple lifestyle so they could continue promoting their progressive politics.

Three ideas from the book really stuck with me.

One, the idea of bread labour. The Nearings worked only four hours a day to feed themselves, and spent the other hours in activist and creative pursuits; the simple life does not have to be long days of physical labour.

Two, the mono-diet. The Nearings lived on a diet of simple staples with little variance. At first this struck me as awful — does simple have to mean boring? On reflection, it made much more sense. Our culture demands that our food be new and different daily, and we ignore the cost of dragging foods across the planet so we can have whatever we want whenever we want. This demand is more about a craving of ego than of physical appetite. Indigenous eating reconnects us with our local foods and local economy. Variety is nice, but we may appreciate more subtle nuances when we pay closer attention to our food at hand.

Three, Sunday morning music. Helen was an accomplished musician. Scott asked her why she played the music of others instead of making her own. The music industry of our day is designed for the reproduction and distribution of other people’s music. Music has to have mass appeal, and musicians have to dedicate careers to the production of material. Why not just play music for one another for entertainment? Or read to one another? Do people do this anymore?

Regarding the physical book, I was quite pleased with the feel of it in my hand. I scanned the cover into Open Library; it is the one you see above. I left a margin around the cover to show the complete physical face of the book, something you don’t often see on-line for new books.

I have a few things to learn about book collecting. The seller described the book as a first edition. I thought he meant the very first edition, but that was in 1954. The seller did provide the 1970 date so I don’t think I was being misled; perhaps this printing is another kind of first edition? For this publisher? I must do better research before making a purchase.

The jacket price was $4.95 and a penciled price was $1.98. The penciled price was likely for a used book store at some point in time. I paid $50 and feel that was good value given what I did research. I have seen similar contrasts in other collector bookstores where rare editions are kept under glass, sold at a higher price than they might have got years earlier. The title page had a previous owner’s name written in pen: Maura Calhoun. No obvious associations via Googles.

Well this was good fun. I will think some more before my next purchase.