Book Recommendations & Reviews
books for beginners
- - Our first book is here! Our book is designed to introduce you to a powerful yet manageable apothecary of 35 herbs and teach you how to apply them to common ailments. We keep it simple and practical, and along the way teach you how to think effectively about herbs & herbalism, laying the foundations for deeper study.
- - Don't be fooled by the title, there's not much New Age-y (in the woo sense) about this book. It's an excellent first materia medica book.
- - A newer edition of a similar type as Mabey's book, working through foundational topics in beginner herbalism such as basic medicine-making, major body systems, and various ailments.
- - This book has a good breadth of herbs covered, with frequent large illustrations and clear, if simplistic, information relating to use and safety.
materia medica
- - Henriette has done us all a great service by maintaining her herbal homepage, as well as the herb email discussion list, for all these years. Now she offers her grounded and reliable insights into home herb use in these lovely editions.
- - A classic. Also available (in slightly abridged form) at botanical.com.
- - Paul's been busting myths and offering clear-eyed practical insights about common, and commonly misused, herbs for decades. Each of these books manages to both offer comprehensive and solid information about the unique qualities of its subject plants, yet also reach beyond the individual herbs discussed toward universal principles of effective herbal practice.
- - The particular genius of this book is the in-depth presentation of three central herbal actions - the bitters, aromatics, and tonics - which are wide-ranging in their positive effects on human health. This makes the book approachable and instructive for newcomers while remaining deeply detailed (& delightful) for more experienced readers.
- - As a former Special Forces medic, Sam brings a unique perspective on the applications of medicinal plants in wilderness survival & post-disaster situations.
This book integrates herbal practice with good preparedness and first aid skills. Keep a copy in your bug-out bag, you'll want it if you need it! - - An unusual resource, focused more on the mineral and vitamin content of herbs than on their medicinal applications.
- - The best single book about cannabis as an herbal medicine, and also an excellent introduction to the endocannabinoid system.
botany and plant ID
- - A kid's book that teaches plant family patterns, great for kids of all ages!
medicine-making
- - Answers the questions: how do I turn this into medicine? How much of the medicine should I use? Each successive edition has more plants, so try to get the 4th edition if you can.
- - Less about personal medicine-making; this book is more about understanding the global trade in herbs and supplements. An enlightening read with regard to the realities of the herbal supplement industry.
traditional medicine systems
- - An excellent contemporary take on energetics and practical applications of them in herbal work. This is an ebook, but it's set up to be easily printed & bound if you'd like to have a hard copy.
- - Extensive, exhaustively-referenced plant profiles make up the bulk of this book, which offers a unique coherence between traditional remedies and contemporary understandings of herbs.
- - Nicholas Culpeper lived from 1616-1654 in England and practiced a style of herbalism influenced by Greco-Roman forebears, along with alchemy and astrology. His Complete Herbal is an important text in the British tradition of herbalism.
- - This syncretic style of herbalism weaves influences from European, Celtic, African, and Native American traditions into the ecosystem of the American South.
- - This text teaches medicines and practices from the Unani-Tibb tradition, which began with Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and other Persian & Arabic practitioners who elaborated and expanded on Greco-Roman herbalism.
- - A fresh translation of Ibn Sina's foundational classic, the Canon of Medicine; includes insightful commentary making connections between ancient concepts and modern scientific discoveries.
- - A good introduction to Traditional Chinese Medicine, especially for those who were raised with a Western cultural background.
- - This book on the traditional medicinal system of India is somewhat demanding - using a great many Sanskrit terms in the text - but is an excellent introduction to Ayurveda.
- - From one of the key figures in the development of what we now call naturopathy. Recognize that this was written in 1913 and is dated, and also that we don't agree with everything it contains - we're not particularly impressed by the practice of iridology, for instance. Yet there are here reminders still relevant a century later. It remains a useful and interesting book; Paul Bergner frequently refers to it as foundational in the development of his thinking on issues of health and therapeutics. Since it's in the public domain, you can find PDF versions of the full text of this book in a number of places, e.g. here at Google Books.
history
- - Would have greatly benefited from a practicing herbalist as co-author, but as an overview of ancient Egyptian use of medicinal plants this supplies the broad strokes and some points of interest.
- - Despite Budge's constant interjections of sneering disdain for the 'savage and superstitious' beliefs and practices of the oldest civilizations, there is much of interest in his tracing of a transmission of knowledge throughout northern Africa, the middle east, and the Mediterranean in antiquity. I was particularly cheered to find the etymology of "alchemy" as coming from the Arabic particle al and Kemeia, "the land of black earth" - an old name for Egypt - hence, the art of the Egyptians. Budge draws connections in lineage and application from Egypt and Akkadia through Greek, Latin, Ethiopian, Assyrian, Arabic, and finally Coptic herbals, and while in this short volume none of these are covered in great depth, the broad strokes give a clear picture of the course of this art and science through that span of time.
- - Paints a very clear picture of the degree of degradation, loss of diversity, and disappearance of wild environments in the Anthropocene epoch, and well worth reading to get that sense of scope. There is supposed to be a hopeful up-turn in the later part, but after the preceding chapters it seems like a candle in the dark, when we need a sunrise.
phytochemistry
- - This excellent book makes phytochemistry accessible and understandable to the herbalist. Technical and complex where necessary, it's suffused throughout with Lisa's personality and charm. Even in the densest of polysyllabichemical forests we find our friends the plants, showing their faces here in a new light and revealing another layer of their selves. We get clear, workable explanations of hot topics in molecular herbalism: immunostimulant polysaccharides, pyrrolizidine alkaloids, phytoestrogens, the whole lot. The chapters on solubility/extraction and synergy/variability alone are worth the price of the book, and the phytochemical glossary is a useful reference. No herbalist, and certainly no herb school, should be without it!
first aid
- - As a former Special Forces medic, Sam brings a unique perspective on the applications of medicinal plants in wilderness survival & post-disaster situations.
This book integrates herbal practice with good preparedness and first aid skills. Keep a copy in your bug-out bag, you'll want it if you need it! - - This book isn't about herbal first aid - it is conventional & pharmaceutical throughout - but it's one of the better books about first aid in wilderness contexts, so good reading nonetheless.
nutrition and food
- - Denise's thorough analysis of the food pyramid phenomenon and its impacts on nutritional policy and practice in the US (and elsewhere) is deeply illuminating. It also teaches scientific literacy and critical thinking skills essential to assessment of nutritional research - and reporting on that research - so that you can become capable of analyzing the flood of nutritional information now available, comfortably and effectively.
- - Though it may not seem like it if you're completely new to this set of concepts, Mark's one of the more moderate paleo/primal writers out there today. He avoids the internecine mudslinging and keeps an even keel by sticking to the fundamentals and allowing for personal variance (both chronologically and across the population).This is useful if you're looking for an introduction to "the whole paleo thing" or if you need something concrete and compact to hand off to your parents, friends, or clients.
- - A clear, impassioned, and comprehensive argument that there is no sufficient justification - whether moral, political, nutritional, or otherwise - for a diet based on the industrial agriculture of annual monocrops. This, I would emphasize, includes most standard American diets as much as it does veg[etari]an diets, and so I wish everyone I know (but most especially the veg*ns) would read this book.
- - Personal musings on ethical dilemmas pair with detailed descriptions of various rifles and reverent descriptions of knife handles. Cerulli brings an immersion of attention to each detail of his study, which serves to carry the reader along with him into the landscapes of forest and philosophy he treads. There is a lot of lingering self-doubt winding through the bright moments of decisive action, but it doesn't dilute the message, best expressed in the winding of two major thematic threads. On the one hand are the clear-eyed assessments of the hidden toll exacted by conventional food supply chains. On the other: the problems, practicalities, and pressures at work in the hearts of hunters, who escape caricature and emerge as fully human - sometimes mindful, sometimes malicious, but all alive and engaged in a primal relationship that shaped our development as a species and retains its potency to stir intense emotions.
sleep
- - This is a good modern introduction to sleep science and covers a broad range of topics. A great first book about sleep.
- - The sleep-researcher author makes a compelling case that dreaming plays an important role in emotional regulation. A fascinating read.
- - I find this book useful as a meditation on cycle (and our breaks from it), shaped by religious observations from Judeo-Christian and Buddhist traditions with a touch of Kali. Not a how-to guide, and definitely not for everyone, but if you like your polarchetypes personified and don't mind a Platonic idealist's poetryst here and there, you might like this.
musculoskeletal, movement, & alignment
- - A biomechanist's look at the causes and cures for foot, knee, and back pain caused by mal-alignment and footwear. Goes into more depth about some of the stretches we teach in class.
- - From the founder of MovNat, this book is part philosophical treatise on the importance of movement (in nature), and part instructional guide on building efficient movement skills, from the ground up.
stress & trauma
reproductive
connection and spirit
- - This is a revel[ation of] in[ter]relation. inspiring, respiring, resounding, astounding. Abrams weaves, spider-like, the sensualignment of a shamanistic, animistic wonder-worker with the theophilosophic discernment of a secret-stalking scholar. His letters speak in varied voices, turbulent and true, to articulate filaments of feeling from foundation to firmament. This is a book to read once a year, until its rhythms and phrasings are as familiar as the gardens and forests of the rewilding world it fills with breathing life.
- - A singularly saturated specimen of metaphoricall[iterat]ure, entirelessly enveloping, instructive in the art of loaded words.
- - Tiffany Aching learns to be a witch. You learn to be a healer.
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