What’s the last book that made you cry? James Rebanks’s English Pastoral.

📚 I read a book in a day yesterday. It’s been a while since I did that. And why was I so hooked?

🐄 Because it’s James. And because it’s Little Strickland.

😊 I genuinely feel privileged. I bet few people have the opportunity to read a beautiful, raw and moving book about the exact place they grew up. The exact cluster of fifteen houses that made up our village in the Eden Valley in Cumbria.

🚸 James is eight years older than me. But his youngest sister was born just four weeks after me. I lived four doors down from the Rebanks family for 18 years and was a regular feature at their farmhouse table as a girl.

🚜 You know when you’ve seen something so often that you kind of don’t even register that you’ve seen it? The way that James puts into words the birds which follow the plough, the rough scrubby ground at the brow of the hill which opens up on a vista of the Lake District fells, men leaning on fences and gates. That last image. My dad was one of those gate leaners. What is it they say? I can’t even… 😭 I was a total wreck at points. For the landscapes and for the people of my heritage.

❓What’s the last book that made you cry?