[Womble]

I really thought we might have talked about The Shepherd's Life before, but the search function seems to think not! Also, I'm acutely aware that others have written far more lyrically about it, so now I've started, I'm really struggling to think what to write! 

Firstly, for a herdwick shepherd, James Rebanks is an unusual chap. To begin with, I expected this to be a reflection on a long life spent shepherding. However, the author is actually only in his forties, and this book is the result of a massive following he gained from Twitter (posting as @herdyshepherd1). He's also incredibly well read, for reasons I can't go into without giving away the book's main twist.

It's really hard to summarise this book. It's not really an autobiography, since it's not told chronologically. However neither is it a collection of anecdotes in the usual style.  Really, it's as if the chapters of an autobiography somehow got printed in a random order. One minute you're reading about gathering sheep on the fell, the next about school days, and the next about the author's relationship with his parents and children.

I think the main theme of the book is a sense of place, and how places shape us as much as we shape them. If you're a long term sheep farmer, you're bound to find a lot to identify with in this book (and I recognized most of my neighbours in one chapter or another). Also I'd recommend it to anybody who's thinking of farming or smallholding as a way of life. This is no cutesy tale, but if you have that spark in you, this book will test that, and will either fan it into flame or put it out. And of course, if you've not started out on your smallholding journey yet, either of these outcomes will be to your ultimate benefit!!