Author of the Month: John Lewis-Stempel
Selected by the Bookshop
Our Author of the Month for January is John Lewis-Stempel, who rejects the term ‘nature writer’, preferring to be described as a ‘countryside writer’: ‘I give the view of the countryside from someone who works there.’ On his small farm in Herefordshire, Lewis-Stempel experiments with traditional farming techniques, and describes both his practice and the countryside itself in elegant, evocative prose.
Tim Dee, writing in the Guardian, notes that the ‘spark-plug energy’ of Lewis-Stempel’s pastoral style ‘comes from being always about the gaps between things: the town and the country, the wild and the tame, the old and the new, the rich and the poor, the sick and the healthy, the cerebral and the manual, the viewer and the participant. It is further charged by being nearly always invoked at the moment of its leaving or its loss.’
From the publisher:
The Times and Irish Independent: BEST NATURE BOOKS OF THE YEARGreat nature writing needs to be informative, detailed, accurate, lyrical, and, above all, to instil a sense of gratitude and wonder. John Lewis-Stempel succeeds in all these…
From the publisher:
"I adore the fox for its magnificence; I hate the fox for killing my chickens. To love and loathe the fox is a British condition."The fox is our apex predator, our most beautiful and clever killer. We have witnessed its wild touch,…
From the publisher:
'BRITAIN'S FINEST LIVING NATURE WRITER' - THE TIMESA SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' from 'indisputably, one of the best nature-writers of his generation' (Country Life) Written in diary format, The Wood is the…
From the publisher:
THE PERFECT GIFT FOR NATURE LOVERS'To see a hare sit still as stone, to watch a hare boxing on a frosty March morning, to witness a hare bolt . . . these are great things. Every field should have a hare.' The hare, a night creature and…
From the publisher:
AS FEATURED ON 'BBC RADIO 4 'GOOD READS'.Woodlands Awards 2019: Woodland Books of the Year'The oak is the wooden tie between heaven and earth. It is the lynch pin of the British landscape.' The oak is our most beloved and most common tree.…
From the publisher:
Winner of the 2017 Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize for nature writingThe natural history of the Western Front during the First World War'If it weren't for the birds, what a hell it would be.'During the Great War, soldiers lived inside the…
From the publisher:
The Wild Life is John Lewis-Stempel's account of twelve months eating only food shot, caught or foraged from the fields, hedges, and brooks of his forty-acre farm. Nothing from a shop and nothing raised from agriculture. Could it even be…
From the publisher:
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Lewis-Stempel is one of our finest nature writers ... He writes with delicate observation and authority, giving us in Woodston a book teeming with fascinating details, anecdotes and penetrating insights into the…
From the publisher:
__________________'BRITAIN'S FINEST LIVING NATURE WRITER' - THE TIMESThe Sunday Times Bestseller - SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2017 Traditional ploughland is disappearing. Seven cornfield flowers have become extinct in the last…
From the publisher:
_________________'BRITAIN'S FINEST LIVING NATURE WRITER' - THE TIMESWINNER OF THE THWAITES WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2015What really goes on in the long grass?Meadowland gives an unique and intimate account of an English meadow's life from January…
Latest booklists
Latest booklists
