Meadowland: the private life of an English field

WINNER OF THE THWAITES WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2015

What really goes on in the long grass?

Meadowland gives an unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December, together with its biography. In exquisite prose, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons from cowslips in spring to the hay-cutting of summer and grazing in autumn, and includes the biographies of the animals that inhabit the grass and the soil beneath: the badger clan, the fox family, the rabbit warren,the skylark brood and the curlew pair, among others. Their births, lives, and deaths are stories that thread through the book from first page to last.

John Lewis-Stempel is a writer and farmer. His many previous books include The Wild Life: A Year of Living on Wild Food , England: the Autobiography and the bestselling Six Weeks: The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War . He reviews books for the Sunday Express, for whom he also writes a regular column, and is a regular speaker on radio and at literary events and book festivals. He lives on the borders of England and Wales with his wife and two children.