The Shepherd's Life: A People's History of the Lake District by James RebanksMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
"This is my life. I want for no other."
If you had told me that I would love this autobiography by a sheep farmer in England, I would have scoffed.
But the magic of books is that, if you give them a chance, they just might suckerpunch you in the gut.
I loved this simple story. I can't possibly tell you how much.
It's the sort of book one reads with the heart, not the mind. It won't win any prizes, but to read it is like putting a soothing balm on a soul one barely registers as wounded by the little cuts and bruises we get in modern society.
It is the anti fad book.
It speaks of unfashionable things.
Family. Duty. Honor. The importance of loving where you are planted. The blessing of waking up every day, needed by many. The sweetness of resting only when deserved, after a long day of physical labor.
"A person’s life was not a thing of his own invention, a new thing on a blank slate. We are bound by our landscape. Shaped by it. Defined by it... We are, I guess, all of us, built out of stories."
This is a deeply moving book, a rare jewel to be held close inside my heart.
"In that moment I’m not just a grandson. I am the one who carries on his life’s work, I am the thread that goes to the future. He lives in me. His voice. His values. His stories. His farm. These things are carried forwards. I hear his voice in my head... Everyone knows he was a major ingredient in the making of me, and that I am the going on of him. It was ever thus."
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