English Pastoral: An Inheritance - The Sunday Times bestseller from the author of The Shepherd's Life

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In 1974, when Rebanks was born and I first made my way up the River Nile, after spending a month hay-timing on a farm in the Yorkshire Dales, over half of the population in sub-Saharan Africa was malnourished.

Through the eyes of James Rebanks as a grandson, son, and then father, we witness the tragic decline of traditional agriculture, and glimpse what we must now do to make it right again. 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. The layout and structure of the book reflect an urgency to explain the dilemma to a wide audience in a compelling but also straightforward way.

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This is a fine book describing the author's love for his Lakeland farm and his efforts to change towards a more sustainable way of farming in contrast with the over-use of chemicals and drastic draining and deforestation of the past. 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. Thus began his relationship with farming, with the land and with nature, a relationship that deepened as nature cast her spell over him, a spell into which he draws his readers.

As he points out, there’s a thin line between utopianism and bullshit, and “beauty doesn’t pay the bills”. Opening with a short four-page preface, the author quickly draws the reader into this world of a family farm with a long and deep-rooted tradition and then sets the scene for a radical departure from simply carrying on with business as usual and hoping to make do.