The Grassling by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett
Elizabeth’s writing is sensory, elastic and dreamlike. In short chapters, she visits the Devonshire landscape through her own physical immersion and her family’s nature-entwined oral history.
When her father’s health declined and she found herself torn between hospital and home, care and fear, the outdoors was where the past and present could merge. In the fields, she could still share the world with her father, bringing him wildflowers to his bedside and revisiting the connection he had with the land.
Her questioning and research reveal years of change: in land ownership, place names, agricultural practices and our human relationship with the natural world.
This is the book to read when you are craving the sensation of lying in a summer’s field. Imagine the dust and pollen settling on your skin and the smell of plant life tinting your world a shade of green.