FARMER'S SON: Calving Season on A Family Farm

A number one bestseller in Ireland, the author lives on his family farm Birchview in County Longford, Ireland. He writes about the connection between people and land in a way that goes beyond mere affection. For him, farming is hard graft and yet a spiritual process too that binds him to family, nationhood, language and myth. Farming has been in John Connell's family for generations, but he never intended to follow in his father's footsteps. One winter, after more than a decade away, John finds himself back on the farm. He records the hypnotic rhythm of the farming day - cleaning the barns, caring for the herd, tending to sickly lambs, helping the cows give birth. Alongside the routine events there are the unforeseen moments when things go wrong - a calf fails to thrive, a sheep goes missing, illness breaks out, an argument between father and son erupts and things are said that cannot be unsaid. It is also the story of a man who emerges from depression to find hope in the place he least expected to find it. In this new hidden Ireland, the book is also a fascinating portrait of a born noticer, someone on whom nothing is lost, observing birth and death, the landscape and his own heritage with intelligent reflection on the state of modern farming and the cycles of life and death that mark our days. With US desirable roughcut edges, 242pp, US first edition.