The Shepherd's Life

A New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon, The Shepherd's Life is a captivating memoir about the unbreakable bonds of family, tradition, and the land.
James Rebanks is the first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself. His family has lived and worked in the Lake District of Northern England for generations, their way of life ordered by the seasons and the demanding work they require. In evocative and lucid prose, Rebanks takes us through a shepherd's year, offering a unique account of rural existence and a fundamental connection with the land that most of us have lost.
The Shepherd's Life is a story of working lives, the people around Rebanks, and his childhood in a landscape that has profoundly shaped the region over time. It is a deep-rooted attachment to place, modern dispatches from an ancient landscape that describe a way of life that is little noticed yet endures even as the culture of farming changes.
This is not a memoir of someone desperately trying to leave a place, but rather the story of someone trying desperately hard to stay, preserving a traditional way of life in the face of modern pressures. Captivating and insightful, Rebanks' The Shepherd's Life is, as Helen Macdonald raves, "bloody marvelous."