The Cow Book

"Superb ... an unexpected triumph, surely a prize-winner -- Richard Benson * Mail on Sunday * I usually view rural Ireland from a train or car window but reading this gripping, fascinating book I felt I was becoming a cattle farmer -- Roddy Doyle John Connell's The Cow Book starts well... and gets better. This is an important slice of living, breathing agricultural history written with absolute honesty by an insider who has the rare quality of being able to see it from the outside too -- Rosamund Young A gorgeous read, full of warmth, truth and tentative wonder. John Connell has written ""an elegy to the nature I know"", but this book is an elegy to so much more - to art and myth and sorrow and longing -- Sara Baume This book is a vivid and sharply observed account of a way of life which is almost invisible, a new hidden Ireland. It is also a fascinating portrait of a single sensibility, a born notice, someone on whom nothing is lost, observing birth and death, the landscape and his own heritage -- Colm Tóibín In lyrical prose, Connell describes the timeless rhythms of farming, the ancient relationship between man and beast, the fellowship that binds rural communities of Ireland, and the fierce generational struggle between father and son -- Jane Shilling * Daily Mail * [A] sweet book . . . a beguiling introduction to aspects of everyday agricultural life * Oldie *"