Twelve Sheep: Life lessons from a lambing season

Author:   John Connell
Publisher:   Atlantic Books
Edition:   Main
ISBN:  

9781805461906


Pages:   192
Publication Date:   04 April 2024
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

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Twelve Sheep: Life lessons from a lambing season


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Overview

For John Connell, the lambing season on his County Longford farm begins in the autumn. In the sheep shed, he surveys the dozen females in his care and contemplates the work ahead as the season slowly turns to winter, then spring. The twelve sheep have come into his life at just the right moment. After years of hard work, John felt a deep tiredness creeping up on him, a sadness that he couldn't shrug off. Having always sought spiritual guidance, he comes to realise that, in addition to the soothing words of literature and philosophy, perhaps the way ahead involves this simple flock of sheep. In the hard work of livestock rearing, in the long nights in the shed helping the sheep to lamb, he can reflect on what life truly means. Like the flock that he shepherds, this book is both simple and profound, a meditation on the rituals of farming life and a primer on the lessons that nature can teach us. As spring returns and the sheep and their lambs are released into the fields, skipping with joy, John recalls the words of Henry David Thoreau, reminding us to 'live in each season as it passes.'

Full Product Details

Author:   John Connell
Publisher:   Atlantic Books
Imprint:   Atlantic Books
Edition:   Main
Dimensions:   Width: 13.50cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 20.50cm
Weight:   0.296kg
ISBN:  

9781805461906


ISBN 10:   1805461907
Pages:   192
Publication Date:   04 April 2024
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

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Reviews

"A beautiful and soothing book, at once far-reaching and intimate, it serves as a sublime exhortation to stop and savour our precious and fleeting time on earth, to be grateful for the life we're given -- Donal Ryan This is such a lovely book, beautifully constructed and crafted. As everyone knows who has enjoyed The Cow Book, John Connell writes like a dream. In Twelve Sheep he returns to the old family farm in Longford, and the contours of a landscape both starkly real and richly imagined, to quarry that inexhaustible seam, the simple yet profound life lessons that come from farming. This is a wise and humane book, a book to lift our spirits in grim times -- Michael Wood Twelve Sheep is what I call a real book, an honest book. I can hear John Connell's voice lilting off the page, and telling me the many truths he has discovered: truths I need to know, and everyone needs to know. -- Rosamund Young Sheep, and sheep farming, are far more interesting than you think -- Tim Flannery I usually view rural Ireland from a train or car window but reading this gripping, fascinating book I felt I was becoming a cattle farmer -- Roddy Doyle on THE COW BOOK A vivid and sharply observed account of a way of life which is almost invisible, a new hidden Ireland. It is also a fascinating portrait of a single sensibility, a born noticer, someone on whom nothing is lost, observing birth and death, the landscape and his own heritage -- Colm Tóibín on THE COW BOOK A gorgeous read, full of warmth, truth and tentative wonder. John Connell has written ""an elegy to the nature I know"", but this book is an elegy to so much more - to art and myth and sorrow and longing -- Sara Baume on THE COW BOOK"


"A vivid and sharply observed account of a way of life which is almost invisible, a new hidden Ireland. It is also a fascinating portrait of a single sensibility, a born noticer, someone on whom nothing is lost, observing birth and death, the landscape and his own heritage -- Colm Tóibín on THE COW BOOK I usually view rural Ireland from a train or car window but reading this gripping, fascinating book I felt I was becoming a cattle farmer -- Roddy Doyle on THE COW BOOK A gorgeous read, full of warmth, truth and tentative wonder. John Connell has written ""an elegy to the nature I know"", but this book is an elegy to so much more - to art and myth and sorrow and longing -- Sara Baume on THE COW BOOK"


Author Information

John Connell is a multi-award-winning author, film producer, investigative journalist andfarmer. His documentary programs have won over a dozen international awards. Hisnumber-one bestselling memoir The Cow Book was awarded Popular Non Fiction Book ofthe Year at the Irish Book Awards. He lives in County Longford.

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