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Rooted
Rooted
Apr 28, 2025 5:06 AM

Author:Sarah Langford

Rooted

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING

'An honest look at the farming life today. Raw, earthy and inspiring' - Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment

'A beautifully written, incredibly timely book' - Clover Stroud, author of My Wild and Sleepless Nights

When barrister and author Sarah Langford left her city life behind she found herself unexpectedly back in the world of farming. It was not how she remembered. Instead, she saw farmers dealing with very different problems to those faced by her grandfather, considered a hero for having fed a starving nation after war. Now farmers faced accusations of ecological mismanagement by a hostile urban media whilst battling extreme weather and political upheaval. Yet as Sarah learned how to farm and grew closer to the land, she discovered a new generation on a path of regenerative change.

In Rooted, Sarah weaves her own story around those who taught her what it means to be a farmer. She shines a light on the human side of modern farming, and shows how land connects us all, not only in terms of global sustainability but in our relationships with our physical and mental health, our communities and our planet.

'Moving, startling, uplifting, galvanising and unsettling, this plainly beautiful book is one of those rare few that changes how you see the world around you' - Ella Risbridger, author of The Year of Miracles

'Heartbreaking and hopeful, this story of a farming revival has never been more important' - Esther Freud

Reviews

Enthralling ... An unignorable call to understand the challenges facing not only farming but the Earth itself.

—— Spectator

Absorbing, compassionate [and] galvanising.

—— Guardian

Langford writes so movingly of the countryside and its effect on her heart and her family.

—— TLS

More than a memoir; Langford manages to contain and convey the whole scale of the coming agricultural revolution.

—— Daily Telegraph

A refreshing perspective on a overwhelmingly masculine world

—— Financial Times

Sarah Langford's book on farming is really a book about healing. All of life and death is here: family, politics, nature, climate, history, humanity. Rooted is a beautifully written, powerful reminder of where we've gone wrong, what is at stake, and how we can change. I loved it.

—— Christie Watson, bestselling author of The Language of Kindness

Rooted offers us an honest look at the farming life today. It is not an easy way to make a living, but through Langford's personal story - and those of who she meets - we appreciate how it offers a connection with the land, and a firmer sense of our place in the world. Raw, earthy and inspiring.

—— Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment

Moving, startling, uplifting, galvanising and unsettling, this plainly beautiful book is one of those rare few that changes how you see the world around you: the shape of fields seen from a train, the vegetables in a supermarket chiller cabinet, the earth beneath your feet and falling through your fingers.

—— Ella Risbridger, author of Midnight Chicken and The Year of Miracles

A beautifully written, incredibly timely book addressing not just where our food comes from and why this matters so much, but also fundamental questions relating to our relationship with the land, and the definition of home.

—— Clover Stroud, author of My Wild and Sleepless Nights

Heartbreaking and hopeful, this story of a farming revival has never been more important. It opened my eyes and touched my soul

—— Esther Freud

A magical book of wonderful stories about how farmers think and the challenges they face. It demonstrates that farmers across the country are passionate about producing food and caring for the land. A triumph

—— Jake Fiennes, author of Land Healer

Rooted is a brave thing: a book that prods into the ever-widening gulf between the binaries we increasingly use to examine the world. As conversations about what we eat and where it comes from reach fever-pitch, Sarah Langford's clear-eyed, inquisitive and passionate plea for farmers and farming offers a vital understanding when it has never been so needed. I hope everyone reads it.

—— Alice Vincent, author of Rootbound

An eloquent and personal insight into the terrible human as well as environmental cost of cheap food and an inspiring account of the people working to heal our relationship with our habitat and ourselves. Urgent, necessary and moving.

—— Ben Rawlence, author of The Treeline

A fine book: heartfelt, honest and hopeful. Sarah has the knowledge and skill to help people better understand where their food comes from and why we should all care.

—— Helen Rebanks

Moving, intimate, tender and searing, this is a gem of a book with deep roots and fresh green shoots.

—— Tamsin Calidas, author of I Am An Island

A timely and optimistic book, ostensibly about why we need farming to produce food, but more deeply about how farming is done, or could be done. Refreshingly authentic, Rooted gives us a hopeful sense of a regenerative future

—— Juliet Blaxland, author of The Easternmost House and The Easternmost Sky

Evocative and resonant. These are stories that need to be told.

—— Andy Cato, Groove Armada and Wildfarmed

Poetically written and filled with compelling data about modern-day farming

—— Vogue

Where Rooted ploughs its own shining furrow in its humanity ... but also the gathered, inspirational stories of farmers trying to do better and greener.

—— John Lewis-Stempel

[Silent Earth] should be obligatory reading for politicians and those in power... compelling... [Goulson] draws up his case in a very readable and accessible style... an essential and timely book.

—— John Green , Morning Star

After another frame-wrecking year I can think of no better book to recommend than Dave Goulson's Silent Earth

—— Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

Goulson's book deserves to be widely read. It is fact-filled and well balanced in the minefield of environmental politics.

—— International Journal of Environmental Studies

Challenging, but also funny and refreshingly low in sanctimony, this book is no frothing polemic. It will doubtless alter many readers' understanding of the systems we all participate in and lead them to make different choices. For others, it should prompt the difficult moral reasoning that those of us who love animals but also profit from their suffering cravenly manage to avoid... Mance is an amiable guide: curious and open-minded.

—— Melissa Harrison , Financial Times

Mance...is spot on to make us confront the horrible truth... [How to Love Animals] will force its readers to stop and think about the incomprehensible scale of unnecessary suffering we impose on our fellow creatures.

—— Julian Baggini , Literary Review
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