Michael R. Best

This is not one of those typical from-my-mother's-garage-to-billionaire business books. This is a small business book not readily found on shelves in your local bookstore or library. This book speaks to the hundreds of thousands of present and future regular small business owners in need of practical advice and encouragement delivered with humour and real-life anecdotes. In other words, the huge majority of small businesses owners who are unlikely to appear on the evening news but who toil away daily because bread must be put in the table and children must be housed, clothed, and fed. And, hopefully, there will be fun along the way and a liveable retirement nest egg at the end. See what some readers have said: "I loved the conversational, story-telling style, which is often funny and so very true."; "Really refreshing to read a down-to-earth observation of what it's like to run and survive the obstacles of small business."; "The tone is one of a learned pal chatting about his experiences with you over a coffee."; and "It's clever, concrete, funny and fresh."

Markham reveals the "pretty and curious secrets" of preparing everything from simple foods to such elaborate meals as a "humble feast" - an undertaking which entails preparing "no less than two and thirty dishes, which is as much as can stand on one table." He instructs the housewife on brewing beer and caring for wine, growing flax and hemp for thread, and spinning and dyeing. As a housewife was also responsible for the health and "soundness of body" of her family, he includes advice on the prevention of everything from the plague to baldness and bad breath. No other source from this period provides the same richness of information in such a readable style. Michael Best's introduction and his abundant notes make The English Housewife readily accessible to the contemporary reader.