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John Lewis-Stempel
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La prairie ; la vie privée d'un champ anglais
John Lewis-Stempel
- Klincksieck
- De Natura Rerum
- 18 Mars 2022
- 9782252046548
« Fascinant... On a écrit des livres sur des pays entiers à la galerie de personnages moins intéressants que ceux de Lewis-Stempel et son champ aux confins du Pays de Galles. Les renards, les milans royaux et les campagnols deviennent aussi intrigants que les héros d'un drame de HBO. » Tom Cox, Observer De loin, un champ a l'air d'un seul tenant ; mais de près ? Que se passe-t-il vraiment dans l'herbe haute ?
En apparence, La Prairie est un simple journal : de janvier à décembre, John Lewis-Stempel raconte le passage des saisons, des renoncules au printemps à la coupe des foins en été et au pâturage en automne. Il dévoile les vies des animaux qui habitent l'herbe et le sol : le clan des blaireaux, la famille des renards, la garenne des lapins, la couvée des alouettes des champs et le couple de courlis, entre autres. L'histoire de leur naissance, leur vie et leur mort est une biographie intime de la vie animale.
Rapprochez-vous encore un peu, suivez les phrases ciselées de Lewis-Stempel et vous vous apercevrez, par exemple, que ce qui paraît plat ne l'est pas vraiment, que ce qui paraît petit est grand et ce qui paraît un est multiple.
En d'autres termes, vous vous apercevrez que la prairie qui enchante le regard - et l'estomac des moutons - est, à elle seule, un monde.
« Je ne vous parlerai que de ce que l'on ressent quand on travaille et qu'on observe un champ auquel on est lié depuis toujours. Tout essai de rationalisation... est inutile », nous aura avertis Lewis-Stempel.
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THE WOOD - THE LIFE & TIMES OF COCKSHUTT WOOD
John Lewis-Stempel
- Black swan
- 14 Mars 2019
- 9781784162436
A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' from 'indisputably, one of the best nature-writers of his generation' (Country Life) Written in diary format, The Wood is the story of English woodlands as they change with the seasons. Lyrical and informative, steeped in poetry and folklore, The Wood inhabits the mind and touches the soul.
For four years John Lewis-Stempel managed Cockshutt wood, a particular wood - three and half acres of mixed woodland in south west Herefordshire - that stands as exemplar for all the small woods of England. John coppiced the trees and raised cows and pigs who roamed free there. This is the diary of the last year, by which time he had come to know it from the bottom of its beech roots to the tip of its oaks, and to know all the animals that lived there - the fox, the pheasants, the wood mice, the tawny owl - and where the best bluebells grew. For many fauna and flora, woods like Cockshutt are the last refuge. It proves a sanctuary for John too.
To read The Wood is to be amongst its trees as the seasons change, following an easy path until, suddenly the view is broken by a screen of leaves, or your foot catches on a root, or a bird startles overhead. This is a wood you will never want to leave. -
MEADOWLAND - THE PRIVATE LIFE OF AN ENGLISH FIELD
John Lewis-Stempel
- Black swan
- 26 Mars 2015
- 9780552778992
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. -
Dusk is filling the valley. It is the time of the gloaming, the owl-light.
Out in the wood, the resident tawny has started calling, Hoo-hoo-hoo-h-o-o-o.' There is something about owls. They feature in every major culture from the Stone Age onwards. They are creatures of the night, and thus of magic. They are the birds of ill-tidings, the avian messengers from the Other Side. But owls - with the sapient flatness of their faces, their big, round eyes, their paternal expressions - are also reassuringly familiar. We see them as wise, like Athena's owl, and loyal, like Harry Potter's Hedwig. Human-like, in other words.
No other species has so captivated us.
In The Secret Life of the Owl, John Lewis-Stempel explores the legends and history of the owl. And in vivid, lyrical prose, he celebrates all the realities of this magnificent creature, whose natural powers are as fantastic as any myth.
'John Lewis-Stempel is one of the best nature writers of his generation' Country Life
