Everyone should read this book.

James Rebanks is a phenomenal writer, he style is so soothing. I wish he wrote about more things.

This book captures the current issues plaguing our farming system as seen from a farming family's eyes. It is refreshing this book as it is not a polemic against the industrial way as most city born naturalists would lean towards.

But he makes a good valid point perhaps food has become too cheap, farmers who are the stewards of the land are not able to make a good living by doing right to nature.

A tad bit romantic in parts but Rebanks has actually is a a farmer so he can be as romantic as he wants.

What a lovely, engaging book. James writes like a modern-day Laurie Lee. Beautiful, but economic prose, coupled with stories of lives so interesting and real, encompassing three generations, brought vividly into existence in your own mind. The look back at what it meant to live and work in the countryside of England in years past is combined with a look at how it can be now and in the future, warning against modern, industrialised, intensive farming methods and the loss of environments and species. Add in a dose of tiredness at what we have become in a more general consumerist sense, and it's an eye-opening read, though in the most hopeful of ways, too. This very definitely isn't a book *about* farming, more about us and how this most important of vocations is core to our survival in any sense that you can imagine.

Oh god, this book. I cried from cover to cover. I cried because of what we have lost, what we are losing, both wildlife and tradition. I cried because every page spoke to me directly as a farmer's daughter. I cried because I missed my Grandads, taking me out to do farm jobs after school. I cried because my family has experienced the same change, hardship and beauty, and I left because I didn't appreciate any of it. I can't wait to buy a copy for my Dad and make him cry as well.

A gentle reassuring read. Thank goodness that more people share my views than did in the 70s when I studied agriculture.

Not my usual plane read but to my surprise I really fell in love!