The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland

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Fans of Lewis-Stempel's bestselling Meadowland will find here the same easy-reading prose fuelled by daft-as-a-brush enthusiasm and embellished with lyrical flourishes ... the mud-spattered details of a farming life lend The Running Hare a unique realness." ( Mail on Sunday) The Running Hare is just the most sumptuously gorgeous book. John Lewis-Stempel is simply the best of the many outstanding nature writers we have today. His forte is writing in great detail about very small areas - by concentrating our minds on the detail he expands our knowledge and view of the world around us. Englightening and stylish...Readers who enjoyed the author’s last book, Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field, will find much in the same vein here: a mix of agricultural history, rural lore, topographical description and childhood memories. I learned a good deal.... Lewis-Stempel is a fine stylist, adroitly conjuring scenes in which “medieval mist hangs in the trees” or “frost clenches the ground”..." (Sara Wheeler Observer) It is interesting to learn about the search for various types of traditional farming equipment, repaired and used at each stage of the wheat growing process, from ploughing the field, sowing the seeds, harvesting, transporting and storing the harvest at the end of the season. It is good to know that quality tools built to last a lifetime are still around and will find a place in our lives again.

I love books that share stories of working with the land using traditional farming methods that take us closer to the natural world and all that thrive there. This is healthy work that engages and benefits our physical, mental, spiritual and emotional beings, and whole-being. These stories and insights provide invaluable knowledge and a rich resource of information for anyone with a desire to work in harmony with the land.During the height of pesticide spraying in the 1960s hare numbers in the UK crashed by over a million. There are now approximately 730,000 hares left.

A stirring rural fantasia...Lewis-Stempel's heart and mind are absolutely in the right place. I salute him and I adored his appreciation of the quirky detail." ( The Times)A close up and intimate natural history by John Lewis-Stempel. By taking an abandoned field close to his farm, he observes in minute detail the behaviour of plants, birds and animals that are being displaced by agribusiness. In telling the story of one field, he tells the story of our countryside, our language, our religion and our food. But in transforming one field, he creates a haven for one particular animal close to his heart - the brown hare.

He describes beautifully the changing of the seasons and the habits of animals such as the hares that make their home in his field. The book is a superb piece of nature writing. Ian Critchley, Sunday Times Six Weeks: The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War: The Life and Death of the British Officer in the First World War (2011) However, this book brings with it much hope; that old traditions never die and can be resurrected amongst our polluted rolling hills. It is confirmation that Nature is a miraculous living being in her own right and that she will flourish when we take the trouble to learn her ways and how to work with her through the seasons. Traditional ploughland is disappearing. Seven cornfield flowers have become extinct in the last twenty years. Once abundant, the corn bunting and the lapwing are on the Red List. The corncrake is all but extinct in England. And the hare is running for its life.He has written on a range of subjects from Native Americans to fatherhood, but specialises in military history and natural history under his family name. He is a former columnist for The Sunday Express (for which he still writes features), and currently a columnist for Country Life and The Times. His Times column, Nature Notebook, focuses on both nature and farming across the UK. [2] In a way, this book reads like a love letter to the English countryside, and one field in particular. There is a heady mix of agricultural history, rural folklore, geography, childhood memories and an odd grab-bag of facts. For example, in an aside on the joys of ploughing by hand, we learn that the ploughman’s lunch was an invention by the British Cheese Bureau in the 1950s to increase the sales of cheese! Shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Society White Horse Bookshop Prize 2016. John Lewis-Stempel was winner of the Thwaites Wainwright Prize 2015 for MEADOWLAND. His latest work, La Vie, (2023) describes his experience in 'la France profonde'. [7] Personal life [ edit ]

That John Lewis-Stempel is one of the best nature writers of his generation is undisputed." ( Country Life) In general, I quite enjoyed reading this rather stylish and romantic account of Lewis-Stempel's project to turn an arable field into a sustainable wheat and wildflower field. His idea was to employ traditional and regenerative methods (including re-introducing bird and wildlife species) to achieve his final goal of producing a crop of wheat-sheafs. His desire was to to see just what could be done in a small area of land (15 acres), and just how much bio-diversity could be regained in the space of his short tenancy of two years. Nearly 3.5) This is the record of a year of old-fashioned farming: Lewis-Stempel rented a several-acre field called Flinders, planted wildflowers in with his wheat and corn, and plowed it himself. Not a pesticide in sight. He attracted hares and other mammals, as well as numerous species of birds – all in all, much more life than your average field farmed by modern methods.I did also learn quite a lot from this book; he includes a lot of agricultural history, pastoral poetry, snippets of folk songs, myths and rural legends, as well as offering startling figures about the declining wildlife in the UK. Here are some things I enjoyed learning: Englightening and stylish [...] Readers who enjoyed the author's last book, Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field, will find much in the same vein here: a mix of agricultural history, rural lore, topographical description and childhood memories. I learned a good deal [...] Lewis-Stempel is a fine stylist, adroitly conjuring scenes in which "medieval mist hangs in the trees" or "frost clenches the ground" [...] " He describes beautifully the changing of the seasons and the habits of animals such as the hares that make their home in his field. The book is a superb piece of nature writing." (Ian Critchley Sunday Times)