Durable Trades by Rory Groves

I give this book 7 out of 10 acorns.

This book puts an interesting spin on the genre of career books: what could you do for income today that has thousands of years of history and tradition behind it?

Profiles of 61 traditional and stable ("durable") livelihoods is the main content of the book, and of course its entire purpose in being written and researched.  The author left his tech career to raise his family of five children on a homestead. Appalled by his professional experience with obsolescence of things (and increasingly of people!), he became interested it what doesn't go obsolete. Occupations like "silversmith" sound like they are right out of the history books, but they are still around: there are still people who work with silver, and it could be the direction someone you or I know today would like to work in.

20 years ago when I and siblings, husband, and friends were young and trying to figure out what to do with our lives, having this book would have provided an alternative exploration process for us than what we all got: the "You have to get a degree to succeed!" spiel that actually doesn't equal inevitable or automatic success. Well down my chosen life path now, I will keep this book in mind as I try to prepare the coming generation of relatives for their quest to make good lives for themselves.