Next to Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside

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There is, for example, the quotation from "Wuthering Heights":: "Hearing a climbing rose scratch against the window like Catherine Earnshaw's escape-me-never hand" - all very clever and cultured, but such endless quotations become very annoying, destroying the flow of the narrative.

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.His] minute observation of places, people and plants, his ear for scraps of dialogue and his feeling for poetry and painting make everything about those days immediate . 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. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like having a well-read friend than a subscription to a literary review.

A nature diary, a reflection on changing rural life over the period from the Second World War, and a commentary on a deeply dedicated man of the church. a modern Hazlitt -- MARK COCKER The finest rural historian of our times * Country Life * It would be difficult to find . Blythe's observations of nature are as unforced as breathing, and his descriptions are precise, celebratory and unexpected . His work, which has 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. In these troubled times it is good to read about the joys of nature and tied in with the Anglican faith Ronald Blythe will be sadly missed by his readers since his passing , he contributed much in his writing living a simple down to earth life and appreciating nature.This was a 2022 Christmas present, signed by the centenarian author, now no longer with us, alas, having died in January of this year. Next to Nature is a hoard of observation, gossip and stories designed to take you through the year, with something rich and strange on every page -- Hilary Spurling * The Spectator, Books of the Year 2022 * [Ronald Blythe] is an English institution . 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 be worth a revisit sometime. It is a selection of Blythe’s regular columns for the Church Times, covering many years and arranged by month. 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 -- SUSAN HILL * Telegraph 5* review * A capacious book that contains multitudes .