[permaculture] suggested reading!?

Lawrence F. London, Jr. lflj at bellsouth.net
Tue Nov 17 21:35:34 EST 2009


With permission I am posting Toby's pc and ecoag recommended reading list for the benefit of those collecting
this sort of thing from posts in this and other lists.

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 From Toby Hemenway's website "Pattern Literacy"
http://www.patternliteracy.com/reading.html

Readings in Permaculture, Ecological Design, and Pattern Literacy

General Permaculture Books

The Best of Permaculture: A Collection. Lindegger and Tap, ed. Nascimanere Nambour. Great stuff from the first 10 years 
or so of permaculture.

Earth User's Guide to Permaculture. Morrow, Rosemary. Simon & Schuster, 2000. An informal introduction to permaculture 
by an experienced teacher.

The Future is Abundant. Korn, Snyder and Musick, ed. Tilth. A guide to sustainable agriculture; OP, needs to be re-done, 
the first bioregional permaculture handbook.

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture. Toby Hemenway. Chelsea Green, 2001. Easy to use and understand tour 
through the permaculture garden

Introduction to Permaculture. Slay, Reny, and Mollison, Bill. Tagari 91 Tyalgum. The best intro, includes a concise 
listing of principles.

Living Community. Haggard, Ben. Center for the Study of Community, 4018 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe NM, 87505. The 
evolution of a premier permaculture site, written by a master designer.

Permaculture: A Designers' Manual (alternate subtitle: A Practical Guide for a Sustainable Future) Mollison, Bill. 
Island Press Covelo, CA, 1990. A comprehensive study guide; the bible of permaculture

The Permaculture Garden. Bell, Graham. Thorson's, 1994. A British-oriented introduction to permaculture gardening 
techniques.

The Permaculture Way. Graham Bell. Thorsons, London 1992. Simple explanation of permaculture in action. Good examples.

Travels In Dreams. Bill Mollison. Tagari 1996. Engaging memoir with stories, stories, stories by the man behind 
permaculture.

The Western (Aust) Permaculture Manual. Brown, David, ed. Cornucopia, Subiaco, West Australia 1989. From philosophy to 
nitty-gritty region specific, untidy early Pc from the trenches, OP

Ecology and Whole Systems

At Home in the Universe. Oxford, 1995. Kauffman shows how life inevitably will emerge when there is sufficient complexity.

Ecological Design. Van der Ryn, Sim, and Stuart Cowan. Island, 1996. The essential concepts of ecological design.

The Ecology of Urban Habitats. Wheater, C. Philip. Routledge, London, 1999. Though written for a British audience, this 
book contains a wealth of information about urban ecology: succession, soils, animals, microclimates, and more.

Fundamentals of Ecology. Odum, Eugene, P. W. B. Saunders, 1971. An early textbook on the basics of ecology, in depth.

A Hierarchical View of Ecosystems. O'Neill, R. V. Princeton, 1986. An advanced look at how ecosystems function.

Holistic Resource Management. Savory, Alan. Island, 1988. The central work of a school of sustainability developed in 
parallel with permaculture. Good biblio which includes personal growth.

Noah's Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Back Yards. Stein, Sara. Houghton Mifflin, 1995. A well-written and 
compelling plea for allowing nature back into our yards, full of natural history.

The Origins of Order. Kauffman, Stuart. Oxford, 1994. A dense and scholarly treatment of the ideas expressed in At Home 
in the Universe.

Out of Control .Kelly, Kevin. Addison Wesley, 1994. How our new understanding of biology is transforming both ecology 
and economics.

The Web of Life. Capra, Fritjof. Doubleday, 1996. An engaging account of how the new sciences of complexity and 
self-organization are affecting our understanding of living systems.

Design Process

Design with Nature. McHarg, Ian. Wiley, 1992. Innovative techniques for appropriate landscape design using map overlays.

Landscape Graphics. Reid, Grant W. Whitney Library of Design, 1987. Excellent introduction to professional landscape 
drawing.

Patterns

By Nature's Design. Neill, William, and Pat Murphy. Chronicle, 1993. Stunning photographs and clear explanations of 
nature's patterns.

The Fractal Geometry of Nature. Mandelbrot, Benoit. W.H. Freeman & Co, 1983. Key insights into natural patterns by the 
developer of the fractal concept.

Metapatterns. Volk, Tyler. Columbia, 1995. Very compatible with Mollison's pattern writings.

On Growth and Form. Thompson, D'arcy Wentworth. Dover, 1992. A magisterial text on how the shapes and patterns in nature 
are formed; a classic in the field.

A Pattern Language. Alexander, Christopher. Oxford NY 1977 Design for human building and settlements using patterns 
derived from successful designs.





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