Canterbury Press is proud to have acquired these backlist Ronald Blythe titles, consisting of illustrated collections of the authors regular weekly column on the back page of the Church Times where, with a poets eye, he observes the comings and goings of the rural world he sees from his ancient farmhouse in the South of England. Each volume was critically acclaimed on publication.
Long recognised as Britain’s greatest living rural writer, Ronald Blythe draws together literature, poetry, spirituality and memory which all merge to create an exquisite commentary on our times that is at once celebratory and elegiac. In this eleventh and final collection of his beloved 'Word from Wormingford', Ronald Blythe opens us our eyes to the small miracles that happen everywhere in ordinary life. With a poet’s deftness he gives us language with which to speak about the experiences that touch every life, but so often leave us speechless – life’s great joys and its incomprehensible sorrows. His writing awakens us to the colours and scents of the seasons and the weather, lets us listen to the myriad remembered conversations stored in his attic mind, evokes the smell of old books and all the memories they conjure up, and shows us how to be thankful for the inestimable blessing of simple routine.
With reverence and love, Britains most admired rural writer chronicles daily life in the Stour valley village, finding beauty and significance in its sheer ordinariness as well as in its many literary, artistic and historic associations. The year takes its shape from the seasons of nature and the feasts and festivals of the Christian year. Each informs and illuminates the other in this loving celebration of natures gifts and neighbourly friendship. Literature, poetry, spirituality and memory all merge to create an exquisite series of stories of our times. These delightful essays first appeared in the Word From Wormingford column, a popular back page feature of the Church Times for some 20 years. It was praised as one of the finest journalistic columns by the Guardian in November 2012.
Over 3,200 entries An essential guide to authors and their works that focuses on the general canon of British literature from the fifteenth century to the present. There is also some coverage of non-fiction such as biographies, memoirs, and science, as well as inclusion of major American and Commonwealth writers. This online-exclusive new edition adds 60,000 new words, including over 50 new entries dealing with authors who have risen to prominence in the last five years, as well as fully updating the entries that currently exist. Each entry provides details of a writer's nationality and birth/death dates, followed by a listing of their titles arranged chronologically by date of publication.
'A blend of clear-eyed science and poetic eloquence The Earth Only Endures follows in the tradition of Jared Diamond and E.O. Wilson. Jules Pretty too is hopeful but on the condition that we understand the nature of the self-imposed threats to our future and the rational basis for human survival. To say that this is essential reading is rather like saying that a compass is essential to navigation.' David W Orr author of Design on the Edge 'Jules Pretty?s remarkable new book is both universal and parochial by turn and beautifully written. It is a philosophical inventory of what we have recentl.
With reverence and love, Britain's most admired rural writer chronicles daily life in a Stour valley village, finding beauty and significance in its sheer ordinariness as well as its many literary, artistic and historic associations.
The East Country is a work of creative nonfiction in which the acclaimed nature writer Jules Pretty integrates memoir, natural history, cultural critique, and spiritual reflection into a single compelling narrative. Pretty frames his book around Aldo Leopold and his classic A Sand County Almanac, bringing Leopold’s ethic—that some could live without nature but most should not—into the twenty-first century. In The East Country, Pretty follows the seasons through seventy-four tales set in a variety of landscapes from valley to salty shore. Pretty convinces us that we should all develop long attachments to the local, observing that the land can change us for the better.
'All the charm, wonder, eccentricity and vigour of country life is here in these pages, and told with such engaging directness, detail and colour . . . Bliss' STEPHEN FRY 'A capacious work that contains multitudes . . . a work to amble through, seasonally, relishing the vivid dashes of colour and the precision and delicacy of the descriptions' THE SPECTATOR 'My favourite read of the year . . . warm, funny and moving' SUNDAY TIMES 'A writer whose pages you turn and then turn back immediately to re-read, relish and get by heart' SUSAN HILL, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Ronald Blythe lived at the end of an overgrown farm track deep in the rolling countryside of the Stour Valley, on the border between Suffolk and Essex. His home was Bottengoms Farm, a sturdy yeoman's house once owned by the artist John Nash. From here, Blythe spent almost half a century observing the slow turn of the agricultural year, the church year and village life in a series of rich, lyrical rural diaries. Beginning with the arrival of snow on New Year's Day and ending with Christmas carols sung in the village church, Next to Nature invites us to witness a simple life richly lived. With gentle wit and keen observation Blythe meditates on his life and faith, on literature, art and history, and on our place in the landscape. It is a celebration of one of our greatest nature writers, and an unforgettable ode to the English countryside.
These exquisite mini essays reflect on the natural landscape, the changing seasons, village life, art, poetry, the stories that ancient churches tell, the Christian year. They refresh ones vision of ones own daily routine and surroundings and can be read over and over again, like poetry.
Ronald Blythe inherited an ancient farmhouse and garden in a fold of the Stour valley in Constable country. As the garden evolves through the year, Ronald Blythe celebrates the gifts of each season in this ninth collection of columns, blending literature, poetry, spirituality and memory as he muses on the world from his garden gate.