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The Wild Life: A Year of Living on Wild Food

The Wild Life: A Year of Living on Wild Food

by JohnLewis-Stempel (Author)

  • New

    Hardcover 2009

    $15.09
Synopsis

Walking around his Herefordshire farm one October, John Lewis-Stempel saw a trout flash in the brook, mushrooms sprinkle the fields, a squirrel eat hazelnuts, and thought: Wouldn't it be wonderful if one could live just on what Nature provided for free? The Wild Life is John's account of twelve months eating only food shot, caught or foraged from the fields, hedges, copse and brook of his forty-acre farm. Nothing from a shop and nothing raised from agriculture. Could it even be done? John takes the reader on a Thoreau-esque journey through a landscape that is true England as he uncovers the ancient past of his five-hundred-year-old farm and the startling symmetries between his life now and that of the farm's peasant founders. Lyrical, observant and sometimes mordantly funny, The Wild Life is an extraordinary celebration of our natural heritage. And a testament to the importance of getting back to one's roots - spiritually and practically.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 304
 Edition: 1st ed.
 Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 21 May 2009
ISBN 10: 0385613903
ISBN 13: 9780385613903
Book Overview: For fans of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Richard Mabey but also Richard Benson (The Farm) and Bruce Chatwin (On the Black Hill) - the story of a man (and his dog) living for a year what can be hunted, shot, fished or foraged in a forgotten corner of rural England

Media Reviews
This is a great book: tough and funny, metaphysical and earthy, passionate and honest. Most of all, honest: not just in the sense of 'candid', but honest also in that it reveals the sheer bloody awkwardness, and the sheer awkward bloodiness, of trying to live even semi-wild these days. What might seem like a gimmick turns out to be a way of discovering a great deal about that complicated thing we call 'land'. There's also some beautiful writing about place. Robert Macfarlane, author of the international bestseller, The Wild Places A fascinating account of each month as [John Lewis Stempel] tracks, kills and gathers what he needs to stay alive...But this is more than just a rundown of all the perfectly edible stuff out there that we tend to overlook in our everyday, supermarket-dominated lives. The Wild Life is also a meditation on survival and our connection to the land...A timely and compelling book -- Jason Webster Sunday Telegraph Tough, honest, funny, poetic and informative, this is an initiatory and spiritual journey. A life lesson for us all. Ecologist Often funny, always passionate, this is a fascinating read. BBC Country File Beautifully written. The closest thing you can get to poetry in prose. -- Paul Blezzard Hay on Wye Literary Festival
Author Bio
In 1996 John Lewis-Stempel convinced his London-born wife to up sticks from the city and move to Herefordshire where his family have lived for five centuries. As well as hunting for wild food, he farms cattle and sheep. He is also the author of a number of books, including the recent The Autobiography of the British Soldier, reviewed by the Daily Express as 'What a book. Five stars'. He has two children.