La Vie: A year in rural France

Product Information

For four years he managed Cockshutt Wood in south-west Herefordshire, three and a half acres of deciduous and coniferous woodland “with a secluded pool where the winter moon lives”.

The Private Life of the Hare - Penguin Books UK

He is the only person to have won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing twice, with Meadowland and Where Poppies Blow. The Charente: roofs of red terracotta tiles, bleached-white walls, windows shuttered against the blaring sun. He won the 2017 Wainwright Prize with another shortlisted book, Where Poppies Blow, about British soldiers and their relationship with nature in World War I.

I could never make a living by manual labour, but I like reading about back-to-the-land adventures, especially ones as bucolic as this – two-hour lunches, six-course dinners with homemade wine? The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Contrary to popular prejudice, sheep are among the smartest animals in the farmyard, fiercely loyal, forming long and lasting friendships. The sheer quantity of bird and insect life; the make-do-and-mend philosophy underpinning daily life; the welcome afforded to incomers who show appreciation and make the effort to integrate; the infuriating nature of French bureaucracy; the love of foraging and of traditional methods. This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use.

La vie (Signed) - John Lewis-Stempel - The Bookery La vie (Signed) - John Lewis-Stempel - The Bookery

His list of birds in the area is impressive, including some you’d be lucky to come across in the UK – turtledove, nightingale, stone curlew.I seized upon this book, partly as an admirer of Lewis-Stempel's writing, and partly because I too have lived in rural France - though not in the Charente. In fact, he estimates that his yield per square metre is triple what it was when he participated in that damaging system, for the same amount of work. We have just published the 80th issue of Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader’s Quarterly and in March 2024 Slightly Foxed will be celebrating its 20th year and and we’ve decided to mark the occasion with an anniversary calendar featuring some more of the seasonal Slightly Foxed covers that readers enjoy so much. It was not the kind of letter they were accustomed to receiving, and it was one that would make history.