La Vie: A year in rural France

Product Information

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? This was a peaceful read, quickly read, yet calming, and evocative of the simpler lifestyle he celebrates. Lewis-Stempel's book Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field won the Wainwright Prize and was also short-listed for BBC Countryfile 's Country Book of the Year 2014. Absolutely lovely writing (as usual) and a real sense of place, lifestyle , culture and self sufficiency. The diary form is perfect for conveying the shifting moods of the seasons and allows Lewis-Stempel to delve into the history, lore, poetry and even the language of woods.

John Lewis-Stempel | La Vie: A year in rural France John Lewis-Stempel | La Vie: A year in rural France

His faith, as well as a yearning for a way of life lost even in the depths of rural Herefordshire (England), are clear to see. The wood also supplied him with logs for his fire (“the released sunlight of years gone by”), wild plants, mushrooms for his table (the book includes recipes, from elderflower champagne to chestnut soup) and the occasional pheasant and wood pigeon: “I farm for wildlife. Observing the traditional shepherd's calendar, The Sheep's Tale is a loving biography of ewes, lambs, and rams through the seasons. 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.La Vie describes a year of his family living in the village, putting down roots and enjoying their new life. For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued a number of classic nature and historical novels.

La Vie by John Lewis-Stempel (Hardback) 9780857526458 Coles Books La Vie by John Lewis-Stempel (Hardback) 9780857526458 Coles Books

Especially with the heat waves that have swept Europe this summer, I’m much happier reading about France or Italy than being there. 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. For many years a farmer in England, John Lewis-Stempel yearned once again to live in a landscape where turtle doves purr and nightingales sing, as they did almost everywhere in his childhood. It was not the kind of letter they were accustomed to receiving, and it was one that would make history. The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood, released in 2018, was also a Radio 4 Book of the Week, and Sunday Times top five bestseller.

While we were house-hunting and renting the mill in the hedged bocage of northern Deux-Sevres the birdsong was of medieval intensity. In the summer he harvested “tree hay”, leaf fodder from ash, oak and elm, storing it as winter feed to which he added vitamin-rich upper branches of holly (whose leaves don’t have spines). John Lewis-Stempel sets off from the UK to the rural far west of France - la France profonde - where he and his wife settle to a farming life in a draughty house with a small menagerie of pets and farm animals and a few acres of vineyards.

La Vie: A year in rural France by John Lewis-Stempel | Goodreads

In la France profonde the signs are more exotic, as John Lewis-Stempel discovers one February morning when his horse crashes through an electrified fence and bolts into a walnut orchard. To see a hare sit still as stone, to watch a hare boxing on a frosty March morning, to witness a hare bolt .A former notary in his early seventies, Jean-Francois shakes hands or bisous five different men and women - France is the republic of handshakes and kisses - and exchanges greetings, gossip and news with them all. I've absolutely loved a lot of Lewis-Stempel's earlier books and as a farmer he seemed to be so rooted in rural Herefordshire. John Lewis-Stempel has permanently moved to France and become a self-sufficient farmer in the Charente region, living in extremely rural France or “la France Profonde”. His history of farming in England, Woodston, published in 2021, also became a Sunday Times bestseller.

La Vie: A Year In Rural France by John Lewis-Stempel - Goodreads La Vie: A Year In Rural France by John Lewis-Stempel - Goodreads

But as three species of lizard emerged from hibernation to join the party, he realises that’s how you know winter has passed in Charente-Maritime. 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. Such small woods play a vital role in the life of our countryside: they are the last refuge of many flora and fauna. I'd really been looking forward to reading this and it saddens me to have to give it such a low rating.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. Lewis-Stempel tends to his flock with deep-rooted wisdom, ethical consideration, affection, and humour. He guides us with gusto around his tiny potager, his five-strong herd of Ouessant sheep with their coveted wool, his water lilies.