Meadowland
the private life of an English field
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Transworld Publishers Ltd
Published:26th Mar '15
Should be back in stock very soon
A love song to the land. A magical month by month observation through parted grass of the flora and fauna of a meadow.
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'BRITAIN'S FINEST LIVING NATURE WRITER' - THE TIMES
WINNER OF THE THWAITES WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2015
What really goes on in the long grass?
Meadowland gives an unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December, together with its biography.
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'BRITAIN'S FINEST LIVING NATURE WRITER' - THE TIMES
WINNER OF THE THWAITES WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2015
What really goes on in the long grass?
Meadowland gives an unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December, together with its biography. In exquisite prose, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons from cowslips in spring to the hay-cutting of summer and grazing in autumn, and includes the biographies of the animals that inhabit the grass and the soil beneath: the badger clan, the fox family, the rabbit warren,the skylark brood and the curlew pair, among others. Their births, lives, and deaths are stories that thread through the book from first page to last.
My book of the year.Meadowland is a seasonal journey of discovery, a pilgrimage that nurtures the soul and gives meaning to life; all life. Each beautifully crafted sentence provides a stepping-stone to absorb and understand the land, with the writer’s lyrical voice acting as guide and trusty staff as well as illuminating the mind’s eye with wonderful imagery and perceptive literary devices. -- Stuart Winter * Sunday Express *
Fascinating ... Books have been written about entire countries that contain a less interesting cast of characters than Lewis-Stempel's account of one field on the edge of Wales. Lewis-Stempel’s immense, patient powers of observation – along with a flair for the anthropomorphic – mean he is able to offer a portrait of animal life that's rare in its colour and drama.
Lewis-Stempel's eye for detail and the poetic imageryof sentencesare reminiscent of the late, brilliant Roger Deakin...There is barely a creature in Meadowland that I didn't learn at least one interesting new fact about .
Engaging, closely-observed and beautiful ... this author’s deep love of the world around him is as inspiring as it is entertaining. This wonderful book ... is most of all, a moving hymn of gratitude from a man so rooted, so full of joy that he likens his land to a cathedral and knows that: ‘To stand alone in a field in England and listen to the morning chorus of the birds is to remember why life is precious'. -- Bel Mooney * Daily Mail *
[JLS] has a sharp eye, a fluent pen and that omnivorous, innocently English curiosity about wild creatures... There are lyrical moments aplenty but this is not the cloying 'regardez-moi maman' nature writing. JLS's tone is level, involved, humorous and even self-deprecating... This is a rich, interesting book, generously studded with raisins of curious information. * The Times *
My holiday reading: [John Lewis-Stempel] knows not only all about the different kinds of life in such a place and how they all fit together, but can also write so vividly. -- Philip Pullman * The Guardian *
ISBN: 9780552778992
Dimensions: 198mm x 127mm x 19mm
Weight: 240g
304 pages