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Imprint: Allen Lane
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Published: 03/09/2020
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ISBN: 9780241245729
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Length: 304 Pages
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Dimensions: 222mm x 29mm x 144mm
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Weight: 422g
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RRP: £20.00
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'A beautifully-written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape.' - Nigel Slater
'Just about perfect.' - Wendell Berry
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The author of the beloved No.1 bestseller The Shepherd's Life returns with a stirring history of family, loss and the land over three generations on a Lake District farm
James Rebanks was taught by his grandfather 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, that landscape had profoundly changed. 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 how the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things were lost. But 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 the odds, it may still be possible to build a new pastoral: not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.
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Imprint: Allen Lane
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Published: 03/09/2020
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ISBN: 9780241245729
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Length: 304 Pages
-
Dimensions: 222mm x 29mm x 144mm
-
Weight: 422g
-
RRP: £20.00
Reviews
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Remarkable ... A brilliant, beautiful book ... Eloquent, persuasive and electric with the urgency that comes out of love
Christine Patterson, The Sunday Times
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Written with the raw power of a three-act Ibsen play, Rebanks shows how good people end up doing bad things to their world without meaning to ... 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
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Rapturous ... a paean to a more life-enhancing approach to farming ... For Rebanks writing and farming have proved complementary: while working long hours on the land he has produced a book in a pastoral tradition that runs from Virgil to Wendell Berry
Blake Morrison, Guardian
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Heartfelt, rich with detail ... This elegy captures the soul of British farming. It is a vanishing world, but some things are timeless ... James Rebanks writes with his heart, and his heart is in the right place. We should listen to him.
Jamie Blackett, Telegraph
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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
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I have never met anyone so roaringly, joyously in context and content as James Rebanks, belting around his farm in the rain ... The story of Rebanks and his family is the story of what farming has been in Britain but, also, the story of what it could become
Caitlin Moran, The Times
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A beautifully-written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape.
Nigel Slater
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A heartfelt book and one that dares to hope.
Alan Bennett
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A wonderful and timely account of one farmer's lifelong effort to do right by his family, his land, his animals and his ecosystem
Nick Offerman
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Wonderful ... I can't imagine anyone starting to read English Pastoral and not being eager to read it all at once, as I did
Philip Pullman
