James Rebanks

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER'Affectionate, evocative, illuminating. A story of survival - of a flock, a landscape and a disappearing way of life. I love this book' Nigel Slater'Triumphant, a pastoral for the 21st century' Helen Davies, Sunday Times, Books of the Year'The nature publishing sensation of the year, unsentimental yet luminous' Melissa Harrison, The Times, Books of the YearSome people's lives are entirely their own creations. James Rebanks' isn't. The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, he and his family have lived and worked in and around the Lake District for generations. Their way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand, and has been for hundreds of years. A Viking would understand the work they do: sending the sheep to the fells in the summer and making the hay; the autumn fairs where the flocks are replenished; the gruelling toil of winter when the sheep must be kept alive, and the light-headedness that comes with spring, as the lambs are born and the sheep get ready to return to the fells.

Många människor kämpar för att lämna en plats. Det här berättelsen om att kämpa för att stanna kvar. En fängslande och säregen bok om en ung brittisk fårbonde i norra England som blivit ett internationellt fenomen. I en tid som handlar om statusjakt, självförverkligande och karriär skildrar James Rebanks ett sätt att leva som har varit det samma sedan vikingarnas tid.

James Rebanks kommer från en familj av fårfarmare som har levt och arbetat i sex generationer på de gröna fälten i Lake District. Arbetet han utför har varit oförändrat i flera århundraden. På sommaren släpper han ut fåren på de stora hedarna, på hösten samlar han åter in sin flock och skyddar den från vinterns hårda väder. På våren föds lammungarna och fåren görs redo för att återvända till livet på fälten.
Fårbondens dagbok är en modern berättelse från ett forntida landskap och handlar om en djupt rotad anknytning till en plats och ett sätt att leva som för många är bortglömt. Här berättar James Rebanks själv om att som ung man återvända från livet i staden till den gård han alltid vetat att han hör hemma på. Ytterst handlar det om att välja att ihärdigt hålla fast vid sina rötter när världen omkring en förändras.

The acclaimed chronicle of the regeneration of one family's traditional English farmNATIONAL BESTSELLER * Winner of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing * Named "Nature Book of the Year" by the Sunday Times * New York Times Editors' Choice * Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Sunday Times, Financial Times, New Statesman, Independent, Telegraph, Observer, and Daily Mail"Superbly written and deeply insightful, the book captivates the reader until the journeys end.Wall Street JournalTheNew York Times bestselling author of The Shepherds Life profiles his familys farm across three generations, revealing through this intimate lens the profound global transformation of agriculture and of the human relationship to the land.As a boy, James Rebanks's grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in England's 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 recognizable. 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.Hailed as "a brilliant, beautiful book" by the Sunday Times (London), Pastoral Song (published in the United Kingdom under the title 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.[Published in the United Kingdom as English Pastoral.]

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

I am the luckiest man alive, because I get to live and work in the most beautiful place on earth: Matterdale in the English Lake District.When I was a child we didn't really go anywhere, except a week in the Isle of Man when I was about ten years old, and I never left Britain until I was twenty.Even now, years later, the best bit of any travelling is coming home. Bringing us into the world of shepherd's baking competitions, sheep shows and moments out on the fell watching the sheep run away home, James Rebanks interweaves thoughts and reflections on the art of shepherding with his photographs of the valley, people and animals that make up the daily life of the fells. A life lived by the three hundred surviving fell farming families, this is a book of photos and words filled with reverence and love.