Next to Nature, Ronald Blythe
Next to Nature, Ronald Blythe
List: $31.99 | Sale: $22.40
Club: $15.99

Next to Nature
A Lifetime in the English Countryside

Author: Ronald Blythe

Narrator: David Holt

Unabridged: 16 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: John Murray

Published: 10/27/2022


Synopsis

As the celebrated author of Akenfield, Ronald Blythe, turns 100 this year, Next to Nature brings together a seasonal collection from the very best of a lifetime of writing.

Ronald Blythe lives at the end of an overgrown farm track deep in the rolling countryside of the Stour Valley, on the border between Suffolk and Essex. His home is Bottengoms Farm, a sturdy yeoman's house once owned by the artist John Nash. From here, Blythe has spent almost half a century observing the slow turn of the agricultural year, the church year, and village life in a series of rich, lyrical rural diaries.

Beginning with the arrival of snow on New Year's Day and ending with Christmas carols sung in the village church, Next to Nature invites us to witness a simple life richly lived. With gentle wit and keen observation Blythe meditates on his life and faith, on literature, art and history, and on our place in the landscape.

It is a celebration of one of our greatest living writers, and an unforgettable ode to the English countryside.

'One of the great prose stylists on the twentieth century . . . a modern Hazlitt' Mark Cocker
'England's greatest living country writer' INDEPENDENT

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

About Ronald Blythe

Ronald Blythe CBE was one of the UK's greatest writers. His work, which won countless awards, includes Akenfield (a Penguin 20th-Century Classic and a feature film), Private Words, Field Work, Outsiders: A Book of Garden Friends and numerous other titles. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded their prestigious Benson Medal in 2006. In 2017, he was appointed CBE for services to literature.


Reviews

I got “Next to Nature” for Christmas 2022 and started reading through its monthly collections of essays in January. I finished the final entry—New Year’s Eve—this morning. I seldom read any book for an entire year so Ronnie, as he was known to his many friends, has felt like a companion throughout 2......more

Goodreads review by Colin

This was a 2022 Christmas present, signed by the centenarian author, now no longer with us, alas, having died in January of this year. It is a selection of Blythe’s regular columns for the Church Times, covering many years and arranged by month. I decided to read each month’s entries at the beginnin......more

Goodreads review by Richard

As this is a compendium of Blythe's writing, I'm afraid I was a little lost with who people were, but I'm sure more avid fans will be very familiar with who's who. This book was with me for most of the year that's passed, and I know I'm going to miss those safe and reassuring words of his which may......more

Goodreads review by Andy

A beautiful book in all respects. A lifetime of reflections on faith, nature and literature. Very calming and engrossing reading.......more


Quotes

My favourite read of the year . . . I do not know of another work that lets you so directly into another person's mind and memory . . . a warm, funny and moving nature memoir Sunday Times

Blythe is a writer whose pages you turn and then turn back immediately to re-read, relish and get by heart particular phrases and images . . . We should be grateful to have him and his beautiful pages, and for the privilege of spending so many ordinary and yet rare and precious days in his company Telegraph 5* review

A capacious book that contains multitudes . . . It is a work to amble through, seasonally, relishing the vivid dashes of colour and the precision and delicacy of the descriptions The Spectator

The greatest living writer on the English countryside . . . Blythe's writing dances with self-deprecating wit, rebellious asides, sharp portraits of fellow writers and notes of worldliness Guardian

Ronald Blythe's eye and voice bring the countryside alive like a Brueghel painting. All the charm, wonder, eccentricity and vigour of country life is here in these pages, and told with such engaging directness, detail and colour. To immerse yourself in this East Anglian year is be reminded of why we love and value the rhythms and realities of rural life. Bliss

A book of priceless wisdom . . . to read as the year unfolds. My Blythe has a great, often droll sense of humour . . . and writes with a spry, unforced elegance Country Life

[His diary] is the best of his writing, its light as air and full of philosophy. . . a wonderful, original, pure tapestry. He could time travel within a single sentence, going from personal to local to global. Being with Ronnie Blythe in one of his books is like being on a magic carpet, the exhilaration of being alive, and of nature, and the world Today Programme

Next to Nature is the perfect memorial, a latter-day Book of Hours . . . I'm resolved to return to this monthly for amusement, inspiration and comfort The Times, Audiobook of the Week

A near-legendary chronicler of a particular patch of countryside and country life Times Radio

The prose is fresher than most contemporary nature writing and, unlike many still-living nature writers, Blythe is concerned with people who live and work in the countryside The Times