My copy of Paradise Lot arrived a few weeks ago and I started tearing through it. The first time you read your newly printed book is quite an experience – very exciting of course, but you also find all the mistakes you now have to live with forever. In this case, what struck me was reading the list of foundational texts for permaculture that inspired me, and realizing I left out Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture. Probably the most important one of all. My copy has a cracked spine and is full of underlines, highlights and scribbled notes. Written in 1927, this book did more to lay the groundwork for my life’s efforts than any other book before Mollison and Holmgren.

If you’ve not read it I highly urge giving it a try. If the world had paid serious attention to it when it was written, we might have avoided multiple environmental and social problems, up to and including climate change.