Showing titles in Rural

As the sun set slowly on the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, the nation's stately homes were in crisis. Tottering under the weight of rising taxes and a growing sense that they had no place in 20th-century Britain, hundreds of ancestral piles were dismantled and demolished. Perhaps even more surprising was the fact that so many of these great houses survived, as dukes and duchesses clung desperately to their ancestral seats and tenants' balls gave way to rock concerts, safari parks and day trippers.

Brought to you by Penguin. The Charente: roofs of red terracotta tiles, bleached-white walls, windows shuttered against the blaring sun. The baker does his rounds in his battered little white van with a hundred warm baguettes in the back, while a cat picks its way past a Romanesque church, the...

The author of the beloved number one best seller The Shepherd's Life returns with a stirring history of family, loss and the land over three generations on a Lake District farm. James Rebanks was taught by his grandfather 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, that landscape had profoundly changed.

Only a man who had lived all his life in Suffolk could produce such a vivid and accurate portrayal of Akenfield and its inhabitants. Ronald Blythe recounts the personal recollections of, among others, the local school keeper, doctor, blacksmith, saddler, district nurse and magistrate as they discussed farming, education, welfare, class, religion and death. Originally published in 1969, Akenfield forms a unique document of a way of life that has, in many ways, disappeared.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER With the same emotional generosity and effortlessly compelling storytelling that made All Over But the Shoutin’ a beloved bestseller, Rick Bragg continues his personal history of the Deep South. This time he’s writing about his grandfather Charlie Bundrum, a man who...

For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation.

As seen on the BBC’s This Farming Life. The inspirational story of Lynbreck Croft - a regenerative Scottish farm rooted in local food, community, and the dreams of two women. Lynn and Sandra left their friends, family, and jobs in England to travel north to Scotland to find a bit of land that they could call their own. They had in mind keeping a few chickens, a kitchen garden, and renting out some camping space; instead, they fell in love with Lynbreck Croft - 150 acres of opportunity and beauty, shrouded by the Cairngorms and deep in the Highlands of Scotland.

Talented and ambitious, Monica Potts and her best friend, Darci, were both determined to make something of themselves. How did their lives turn out so different? “The Forgotten Girls is much more than a memoir; it’s the unflinching story of rural women trying to live in the most rugged...

One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on. Back at home, Rebanks couldn’t stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return.

When actor, playwright and comedian Seamus O'Rourke first published Standing in Gaps in 2020 it found a wide audience amongst readers in rural Ireland. With a distinct talent for seeing the absurd in the ordinary, mundane lives of people who 'had nothing better to be at' and making it hilarious, Standing in Gaps manages to turn back time and transport the listener to a place where everything moved slowly – and in the Leitrim of the '60s, '70s and '80s, that means really slowly.

'He does write beautifully, especially of his greatest love — our wild birds...On The Marsh is a delightful read.' – Christopher Hart, Daily Mail How the rewilding of eight acres of Norfolk marshland inspired a family and brought nature even closer to home. When writer Simon Barnes heard a...

We may be excluded from the majority of our land, no less than 92 per cent in England, but best-selling nature writer and trespasser Nick Hayes shows how we can reclaim our lost connection. By engaging with the land through craft and learning and by caring for it, our relationship with the countryside will be better for us, and better for nature. Interwoven are testimonials from expert contributors—farmers and land workers, activists and authors—each with deeply personal stories of what a connection to nature means for them.

In the sequel to Seamus O'Rourke's popular first memoir, Standing in Gaps, this innocent Leitrim lad finally flees the nest, briefly sampling life in New York, Dublin and London – before inevitably returning to his beloved, duller than dishwater existence at home, a life which now includes alcohol, Doctor Hook and some low-budget romance. But man does not live on romance alone and Seamus needs to get to the bottom of his general uselessness, spurred on as always by his ever-the-realist father, who prophesised his mediocrity from an early age.

Acclaimed nature writer Neil Ansell has suffered from progressive hearing loss his whole life. As his world is becoming ever more silent, he suddenly hears something quite unexpected — the haunting call of the great northern diver. It is this extraordinary experience which makes him realise that there might still be remarkable sounds in nature within his reach — if he can only find himself in the right place at the right time. This moving book charts Neil's mission to hear rare and elusive creatures that he had not previously encountered.

Zoë Colville spent years in a fancy hair salon with a long list of clients, living on cigarettes, croissants, and a shoestring. It was everything she'd ever wanted. But when an unexpected and overwhelming loss caused her life to shift unexpectedly, she found herself on a different path. One where the only use for a hairdryer is warming new-born lambs; where the cycle of life on a farm gives new meaning on purpose, and where nature is both a strict teacher and a balm to soothe the pressures of everyday life.

WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION 2025 A WATERSTONES AND GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2024 'Both dynamite and medicine' AMY-JANE BEER 'Timely and rousing' THE TIMES ________________________________ The lie of the land: that Britain’s landowners care for the countryside. Our landowning...

Growing up gifted and working-class in the foothills of the Ozarks, Monica and Darci became fast friends. The girls bonded over a shared love of learning as they navigated the challenges of their declining town and tumultuous family lives - broken marriages, shuttered stores and factories. They pored over the giant map in their classroom, tracing their fingers over the world that awaited them, vowing to escape. In the end, Monica left Clinton for university and fulfilled her dreams. Darci, along with many in their circle of friends, did not.

In the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation’s stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour. Nothing lay beyond their reach in a world where privilege and hedonism went hand-in-hand with duty and honour. This was a time when the ancestral seats of ancient nobility stood side-by-side with the fabulous palaces of Jewish bankers and Indian princes, when dukes and duchesses mixed with aristocratic society hostesses who had learned to dance in the chorus line and self-made millionaires who had been raised in the slums of Manchester and Birmingham.

Brought to you by Penguin. Urgent and inspiring stories of rural Britain today, from the Sunday Times no. 1 bestselling author of Politics on the Edge Rory Stewart spent nearly a decade as MP for Britain’s most rural constituency, Penrith and the Border. As he came to know and love this part...

Brought to you by Penguin. The classic evocative tale of an idyllic childhood in the English countryside Cider with Rosie is a wonderfully vivid memoir of childhood in a remote Cotswold village, a village before electricity or cars, a timeless place on the verge of change. Growing up amongst the...