Whether you are off on holidays or thrown down in the garden, summer is the perfect time to catch up with a good book. Crime, romance, mystery, drama, both fact and fiction, the choices are plenty and options favourable.
There is one genre in particular Irish Country Living readers will be inclined towards and that is farming books – and not the type you would study for the ag science Leaving Cert exam with. We are talking farmers (and their animals!) telling their own poignant stories.
These types of farming memoirs have become more common on bookshop shelves in recent years, and their popularity continues to rise. With a number of releases in recent months and more on the horizon, we profile three farming books that have it all.
Bodacious: The Shepherd Cat
Bodacious: The Shepherd Cat by Suzanna Crampton.
Yes, you read that right, a shepherd cat. Rescued by his owner Suzanna Crampton, who penned this charming tale, Bodacious first rose to fame through his YouTube videos, which have amassed over 500 thousand views, and also his Twitter page.
The story is told from Bodacious’s perspective while he takes us through a year in his life on Black Sheep Farm, Co Kilkenny, where he lives with Suzanna the shepherd, more cats, dogs, a flock of Zwartbles sheep and an assortment of other animals.
Suzanna first found Bodacious as a kitten wondering around a shop in Kilkenny and when no one claimed him, she took the cat back to join the array of animals on her farm. But, a very different type of feline, Bodacious was not content staying on the bottom rung of the animal ladder, straight away he was sauntering around the farm like he owned the place, immediately establishing himself as the top cat.
Suzanna Crampton and her cat Bodacious at home in Kilkenny with their flock of Zwartbles sheep.
In this book, Bodacious depicts his daily farm duties, shepherding adventures, the people he meets and his unbreakable bond with Suzanna. This story will strike a chord with cat lovers everywhere, while also portraying farm life at its best; early mornings, beautiful sunrises, entertaining animals, mouth-watering food, kind people and hard work.
Bodacious: The Shepherd Cat is available now from all good bookshops.
Till the Cows Come Home
Lorna Sixsmith's book. Till the Cows Come Home.
Although she was brought up on farm and developed an attachment to the land at an early age, there was once a time when Lorna Sixsmith had never imagined herself farming.
To boot, Lorna has a long list of allergens, all commonly found on farm yards. Having lived abroad for years, at the beginning of this tale Lorna and her husband Brian find themselves back on the land chasing a calf around a field of a Sunday morning, not somewhere they imagined they would be. But it is a happy change overall.
Lorna Sixsmith.
Now Lorna’s children play in the same fields as she did and their adventures prove the same as her own. Till the Cows Come Home: Memories of an Irish Farming Childhood, is Lorna’s fourth book and mixes family memories, social history and her own hard-won insights into life on the land.
Packed with nostalgia, this book brings to life the men who ploughed, tilled and harvested, who loved to work the fields with horses, never quite taking to tractors. Also portrayed are the tough farm women, who churned butter and kept chickens, selling the eggs to earn their hen money.
Till the Cows Come Home is available now from all good bookshops.
Falling for a Farmer
Maura McElhone's book Falling for a Farmer.
Regular readers of Irish Country Living will be no strangers to the name Maura McElhone. This city slicker from Co Derry has documented her heart-warming, humbling and hilarious agricultural learnings in her column on these pages, as she navigates life with her farmer fiancé Jack.
With a white dress, honeymoon and happy ever after on the horizon, Maura has turned her story of meeting Jack and learning all about his farming lifestyle, into the much anticipated Falling for a Farmer, which will be on shelves this September.
Maura McElhone.
We were lucky enough to get a sneak peek at Maura’s first book and as with her column, it is written with a striking honesty that will both draw you in and keep pages turning. The book tells Maura’s real life story of her journey from California to the arms of a Kildare farmer, in a book full of love and learning.
Read more
Living Life: Meet John Connell, author of The Cow Book
Perfecting farm life
Whether you are off on holidays or thrown down in the garden, summer is the perfect time to catch up with a good book. Crime, romance, mystery, drama, both fact and fiction, the choices are plenty and options favourable.
There is one genre in particular Irish Country Living readers will be inclined towards and that is farming books – and not the type you would study for the ag science Leaving Cert exam with. We are talking farmers (and their animals!) telling their own poignant stories.
These types of farming memoirs have become more common on bookshop shelves in recent years, and their popularity continues to rise. With a number of releases in recent months and more on the horizon, we profile three farming books that have it all.
Bodacious: The Shepherd Cat
Bodacious: The Shepherd Cat by Suzanna Crampton.
Yes, you read that right, a shepherd cat. Rescued by his owner Suzanna Crampton, who penned this charming tale, Bodacious first rose to fame through his YouTube videos, which have amassed over 500 thousand views, and also his Twitter page.
The story is told from Bodacious’s perspective while he takes us through a year in his life on Black Sheep Farm, Co Kilkenny, where he lives with Suzanna the shepherd, more cats, dogs, a flock of Zwartbles sheep and an assortment of other animals.
Suzanna first found Bodacious as a kitten wondering around a shop in Kilkenny and when no one claimed him, she took the cat back to join the array of animals on her farm. But, a very different type of feline, Bodacious was not content staying on the bottom rung of the animal ladder, straight away he was sauntering around the farm like he owned the place, immediately establishing himself as the top cat.
Suzanna Crampton and her cat Bodacious at home in Kilkenny with their flock of Zwartbles sheep.
In this book, Bodacious depicts his daily farm duties, shepherding adventures, the people he meets and his unbreakable bond with Suzanna. This story will strike a chord with cat lovers everywhere, while also portraying farm life at its best; early mornings, beautiful sunrises, entertaining animals, mouth-watering food, kind people and hard work.
Bodacious: The Shepherd Cat is available now from all good bookshops.
Till the Cows Come Home
Lorna Sixsmith's book. Till the Cows Come Home.
Although she was brought up on farm and developed an attachment to the land at an early age, there was once a time when Lorna Sixsmith had never imagined herself farming.
To boot, Lorna has a long list of allergens, all commonly found on farm yards. Having lived abroad for years, at the beginning of this tale Lorna and her husband Brian find themselves back on the land chasing a calf around a field of a Sunday morning, not somewhere they imagined they would be. But it is a happy change overall.
Lorna Sixsmith.
Now Lorna’s children play in the same fields as she did and their adventures prove the same as her own. Till the Cows Come Home: Memories of an Irish Farming Childhood, is Lorna’s fourth book and mixes family memories, social history and her own hard-won insights into life on the land.
Packed with nostalgia, this book brings to life the men who ploughed, tilled and harvested, who loved to work the fields with horses, never quite taking to tractors. Also portrayed are the tough farm women, who churned butter and kept chickens, selling the eggs to earn their hen money.
Till the Cows Come Home is available now from all good bookshops.
Falling for a Farmer
Maura McElhone's book Falling for a Farmer.
Regular readers of Irish Country Living will be no strangers to the name Maura McElhone. This city slicker from Co Derry has documented her heart-warming, humbling and hilarious agricultural learnings in her column on these pages, as she navigates life with her farmer fiancé Jack.
With a white dress, honeymoon and happy ever after on the horizon, Maura has turned her story of meeting Jack and learning all about his farming lifestyle, into the much anticipated Falling for a Farmer, which will be on shelves this September.
Maura McElhone.
We were lucky enough to get a sneak peek at Maura’s first book and as with her column, it is written with a striking honesty that will both draw you in and keep pages turning. The book tells Maura’s real life story of her journey from California to the arms of a Kildare farmer, in a book full of love and learning.
Read more
Living Life: Meet John Connell, author of The Cow Book
Perfecting farm life
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