(The original edition from 1978)
Yeehaw! I loved this. Dolly was 19 when she wrote this very practical guide on living off the land. Truth be told, I thought it was a hoax as I was reading. Sometimes, I just couldn't believe a 19-year old girl with a junior-high education could've possibly come up with some of the stuff she says. Just wild. But she's real, according to what I can dig up on her. And she's got advice, or an opinion, on just about anything you can think of. Getting your own land. How to make your own alcohol, even building a still! Blood sausage. Raising rabbits for meat. Easy ways to keep hens for eggs. Foraging for food. Fishing. Gardening.
Some of the book is sadly naive: You can sort of tell in some places that her father had too much of an influence on her. I got the impression that she loved but also idolized her daddy, although he seemed - to me - to be an extremist anti-establishment alcoholic who had no interest in getting a job and supporting his daughter or teaching her more about the world beyond their neighborhood.
Despite this, it's a good book with a good survivalist attitude, contains great tips on how to feed, clothe, and enjoy yourself without using much money at all. I come away from the book feeling that if anyone could get blood from a stone, Dolly could and probably still does.