English Pastoral
An Inheritance
Published on 2. September 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-14-198257-1 (ISBN)
Description
THE SUNDAY TIMES NATURE BOOK OF THE YEAR
The new bestseller from the author of The Shepherd's Life
'A beautifully written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape' Nigel Slater
As a boy, James Rebanks's grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, it was barely recognisable. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song.
English Pastoral is the story of an inheritance: one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse, and the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things were lost. And yet this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of hope: of how, guided by the past, one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his, doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future.
This is a book about what it means to have love and pride in a place, and how, against all the odds, it may still be possible to build a new pastoral: not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.
'A heartfelt book and one that dares to hope' Alan Bennett
'A wonder of a book, fierce, tender, and beautiful' Helen Macdonald
Winner of the Wainwright Prize
Winner of the Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize
Shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize
Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize
The new bestseller from the author of The Shepherd's Life
'A beautifully written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape' Nigel Slater
As a boy, James Rebanks's grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, it was barely recognisable. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song.
English Pastoral is the story of an inheritance: one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse, and the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things were lost. And yet this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of hope: of how, guided by the past, one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his, doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future.
This is a book about what it means to have love and pride in a place, and how, against all the odds, it may still be possible to build a new pastoral: not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.
'A heartfelt book and one that dares to hope' Alan Bennett
'A wonder of a book, fierce, tender, and beautiful' Helen Macdonald
Winner of the Wainwright Prize
Winner of the Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize
Shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize
Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize
Reviews / Votes
Remarkable ... A brilliant, beautiful book ... Eloquent, persuasive and electric with the urgency that comes out of love -- Christine Patterson * The Sunday Times * It is a book full of love: of his grandfather, of his children and of the Lake District valley where he lives and farms ... Some books change our world. I hope this turns out to be one of them. -- Julian Glover * Evening Standard * A beautifully written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape. -- Nigel Slater James Rebanks's English Pastoral deserves to be called a masterpiece. Four generations of his family building on centuries of their farming in the Cumbrian Fells gives us a poetic, practical, raw and almost miraculously detailed picture of this ancient way of life struggling to survive and to be reborn. This wonderful book was waiting to be written. -- Melvyn Bragg * New Statesman Book of the Year * A wonder of a book, fierce, tender, and beautiful. Deeply personal but also global in significance, its pages course with love and concern so palpable I more than once wept while reading it. James Rebanks writes lyrically and passionately of the shadow that has fallen over our relationship with land, and how we might reconfigure the ways we think about it, relate to it, interact with it, and with each other. It's both a sobering, urgent read and a deeply inspiring, hopeful one. The book, and author, are to be treasured -- Helen Macdonald * author of H is for Hawk * Powerful, important and deserves every accolade. -- Raynor Winn One of the most important books of our time. Told with humility and grace, this story of farming over three generations - where we went wrong and how we can change our ways - will be our land's salvation. -- Isabella Tree What a terrific book: vivid and impassioned and urgent--and, in both its alarm and its awe for the natural world, deeply convincing. Rebanks leaves no doubt that the question of how to farm is a question of human survival on this hard-used planet. He should be read by everyone who grows food, and by everyone who eats it -- Philip Gourevitch James Rebanks's story of his family's farm is just about perfect. It belongs with the finest writing of its kind -- Wendell Berry Ambitious, accomplished ... Rebanks is eloquent - scenes of mud and guts are interspersed with quotes ranging from Virgil to Schumpeter, Rachel Carson to Wendell Berry ... English Pastoral builds into a heartfelt elegy for all that has been lost from our landscape, and a rousing disquisition on what could be regained - a rallying cry for a better future. -- Laura Battle * Financial Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
226 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-14-198257-1 (9780141982571)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2020
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€10.99
Available for download
Person
James Rebanks is a farmer based in the Lake District, where his family have lived and worked for over six hundred years. His No.1 bestselling debut, The Shepherd's Life, won the Lake District Book of the Year, was shortlisted for the Wainwright and Ondaatje prizes, and has been translated into sixteen languages. His second book, English Pastoral, was also a Top Ten bestseller and was named the Sunday Times Nature Book of the Year. Heralded as a 'masterpiece' by the New Statesman, it won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing and was named Fortnum and Mason Food Book of the Year; it was also shortlisted for the Orwell and Ondaatje prizes, and longlisted for the Rathbones Folio award.