The Useful Book, written by Sharon and David Bowers, illustrated by Sophie Nicholay.

This book certainly lives up to its title – it contains the most basic skills you need to know in order to function as an adult. It’s split into two sections – Home Ec, and Shop. Cooking, sewing, laundry and clothing, domestic arts (code for ‘cleaning’), and life skills fall into the first section. Domestic repair (home maintenance), woodworking and metalworking, plumbing, electrical, and mechanical fall into the second.

It’s surprisingly thorough, with instructions not only on how to do things, but why you should do them – reasons to cook, how our disposable culture is unsustainable so we should try to fix things instead of throwing them away, etc. It has terms with definitions for various techniques, and all sorts of useful information.

In the first section, Home Ec, it includes tips to managing a household, including finding discounts, budgeting, and how to correctly store food to make it last. There are little, ‘the more you know’ tidbits of information interspersed throughout, little historical facts about the various things it’s teaching you that are fun to come across.

There are plenty of recipes to get any cook started, and directions on how to clean a variety of surfaces and materials. Also included are simple projects to learn skills on, such as sewing, woodworking, and metalworking. Included is some of every common sort of repair technique, including basic car and bicycle repair and maintenance.

The main theme in this book is how to properly take care of both yourself and what you have, to make it last. This would be a great high school graduation present or housewarming gift for new home-owners, or anyone moving to live on their own for the first time. Even if you’re good at some of these things, though, no one is an expert on everything – this is a book that can also fill in those gaps. Overall, it’s a handy and, well, useful book that I can easily see being ear-marked and well used in the home.

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I was given a digital advanced copy of this book from publishers registered with NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.