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Akenfield
  • Published: 26 September 2005
  • ISBN: 9780141187921
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $24.99

Akenfield

Formats & editions
Paperback
26 Sept 2005
EBook
26 Sept 2005
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'Still the best portrait of modern rural life in England, subtle and compassionate' Roger Deakin, BBC Wildlife magazine

This colourful, perceptive portrayal of English country life reverberates with the voices of the village inhabitants, from the reminiscences of survivors of the Great War evoking days gone by, to the concerns of a younger generation of farm-workers and the fascinating and personal recollections of, among others, the local schoolteacher, doctor, blacksmith, saddler, district nurse and magistrate. Providing insights into farming, education, welfare, class, religion and death, Akenfield forms a unique document of a way of life that has, in many ways, disappeared.
  • Published: 26 September 2005
  • ISBN: 9780141187921
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $24.99
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Also by Ronald Blythe

English Journeys
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Praise for Akenfield

A hundred years from now, anyone wanting to know how things were on the land will turn more profitably to Akenfield than to a sheaf of anaemically professional social surveys.

the Guardian

Blythe lovingly opens the curtains of legend and landscape, revealing the inner, almost clandestine, spirit of the village behind. His book consists of direct-speech monologues, delivered by 49 Suffolk residents, and interpretatively linked by the author. The effect is one of astonishing immediacy: it is as if those country people have looked up for a moment from their plow, lawnmower or kitchen sink, and are talking directly (and disturbingly frankly) to the reader

Jan Morris, The New York Times

Exquisite

John Updike