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

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There were many accolades from some very fine authors regarding this book: Wendell Berry; Richard Flanagan, and Philip Gouretivich.

Rebanks is a rare find indeed: a Lake District farmer whose family have worked the land for 600 years, with a passion to save the countryside and an elegant prose style to engage even the most urban reader. He's refreshingly realistic about how farmed and wild landscapes can coexist and technology can be tamed. A story for us all. * Evening Standard, Best Books of Autumn 2020 * It was sad reading about the demise of the family farm. How in the good old days there were harvest festivals that brought the farming community together every year, and now it’s a thing of the past. I think we are taught that progress is a good thing with no ands, ifs, or buts. I think this book is a cautionary tale… The main thrust I think of the author’s arguments is captured in this compromise. At its worse this seems to be rather resentful of both sides: he seems to share equal dislike for the world of neo-liberal free-trade and globalised economics (economists in particular seem to be his rather odd bête noire) and for left-wing extremists (George Monbiot is not named in the book but the two seem to have a history of opposition). But more commonly he argues against entrenched positions (that farmers are either all bad or all good) and bifurcation (for example colleges which turn out either economics focused MBA farmers or nature loving ecologists but without ever bringing the two into dialogue). English Pastoral’ is a beautiful portrayal of an English farming family, this is incredibly enjoyable as well as being insightful. I absolutely loved this. Each of the chapters is named slightly ironically: the first chapter does not hide some of the brutal realities and precariousness of his Grandfather’s approach; the second commendably tries to be partly even handed about the change (recognising what it has done to enable more people to be fed alongside concentrating on all that has been lost) and the third is far from a utopia but a very deliberate compromise the author has made which he knows will disappoint both “die hard production focused farmers” and “extreme wilderness-loving ecologists”James Rebanks is a beautiful writer, in a unique position to describe the challenges currently being faced by farmers throughout the world. English Pastoral is a joy to read and extremely moving – a book which should be read by every citizen." I really enjoyed the first part of the book that involved him learning about farming from his grandfather. 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 * About the time that I left the farm my father bought four-row equipment, but by then bigger farmers were planting and cultivating with six-row equipment. Today, family farms such as ours have become as extinct as the dodo bird and the big farmers and land corporations are doing their work with twelve-row equipment. It takes them only one trip through the field to plant or cultivate an entire acre.

Rebanks’ gift is his ability to be firm in his views, but also accept shades of grey. He describes a spectrum of attitudes, something which seems important in a world where debate is so often polarised. One of the quietly great scenes inthe book is a seventieth birthday party, where the elderly (small c) conservative farmers talk about how farming has changed for the worse, beginning to sound “a bit like the environmentalists we once all hated”. Rebanks shows how his own views, and those of his father, have changed so much within his lifetime. His arguments are highly persuasive, partly because they are a living, working demonstration of positive change, but also because he shows how a debate can evolve and take the best parts from a bad practice. They are also, sadly, particularly relevant in a year that has seen multiple uncontrollable fires, and a disease caused by human incursions into wild places. The only negative to this book is its basic dogmatism – Rebanks has strongly held theories and in parts, English Pastoralcan feel like the mere vehicle for these. The power of English Pastoral lies not just in the passion and eloquence of its prose or the clarity of its argument. It carries the authority of one who has not just thought about these problems, but lived them. It is a timely and important book. * TLS * An engrossing read. The memoir is divided into three parts. Reading the first part I lost sense of time. It was so enjoyable and so interesting to read. Being a city boy all my life, I was fascinated about life on the farm. Not an easy life to be sure. A lament for lost traditions, a celebration of a way of living and a reminder that nature is 'finite and breakable.' Mr. Rebanks hits all the right notes and deserves to be heard * Wall Street Journal * Rebanks certainly has an axe to grind, but English Pastoral is written in such a way that his book never loses its ability to engage with his audience, and encourage compulsive, emotionally invested reading. He draws his family well, with all their nuances and foibles, and his descriptions of nature are a vibrant inducement to care. He writes beautifully.James Rebanks's English Pastoral deserves to be called a masterpiece. Four generations of his family building on centuries of their farming in the Cumbrian Fells gives us a poetic, practical, raw and almost miraculously detailed picture of this ancient way of life struggling to survive and to be reborn. This wonderful book was waiting to be written. -- Melvyn Bragg * New Statesman Book of the Year *

It moved me to tears, made me feel excited and optimistic, and said, so eloquently and succinctly, all the things I've been thinking and feeling ... It is not just a beautiful book to read, but so important and so timely. A wonderful, thought-provoking, heartlifting read. -- Kate Humble

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Winner of the 2021 Wainwright Prize for Writing for UK Nature Writing – the book was described by the prize as “the story of an inheritance. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world have been brought close to collapse, and the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things are being lost. 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 for us all.” 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.

James Rebanks describes the life of a Lakeland working farmer from the inside with a unrivalled truth and eloquence -- Tom Fort, author of Casting Shadows English Pastoral is a work of art. It is nourishing and grounding to read [...] this brave and beautiful book will shape hearts and minds."

Nostalgia' recounts his awakening to the pattern of farming traditions, as his grandfather cast a guiding arm round the awkward boy who couldn't break through his father's brusque and careworn bearing. His grandfather's fields became his classroom, where he "walked and rode with him through the seasons", listening to tales "full of horses", watching from the tractor the plundering gulls following the plough, and wondering "whether the cows worked for my grandfather, or the other way round". With his farm education complete, Rebanks realises he is a true believer in "that old farming world", but at the same time he doubts that a Lakeland mixed farm like his can survive without leaving the old traditions behind. I wonder what the neighbouring farmers make of this book and also what the wider farming community will think of it. There is something for everyone here – it’s a good story. But will the farmers who read it think that its author has just gone over to the townie environmentalists or will they see this tale as indicating a way forward for some of them to follow in other hills and dales? Wonderful [...] I can't imagine anyone starting to read English Pastoral and not being eager to read it all at once, as I did" I don’t often feel compelled to write a review straight after finishing a book, but English Pastoral: An Inheritance by James Rebanks has such an urgent, important and readable message that it has to be shared.