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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
I was surprised by the less than positive reviews of this book as I found it a lovely little read on my commute. It consists of an organic farmer’s view and musings of how cows work. There is no pretence that any of the ideas are scientific, but anecdotal based on years of farming.
As a vegetarian (vegan for a time), I find the idea of farming in an ethical and smaller scale well encouraging. It’s a lovely little read that reinforces the ideas that nature knows what it needs and shouldn’t be messed with.
As a vegetarian (vegan for a time), I find the idea of farming in an ethical and smaller scale well encouraging. It’s a lovely little read that reinforces the ideas that nature knows what it needs and shouldn’t be messed with.
I honestly really enjoyed this! It was super cute and cool to read real observations about animals in short stories. It was a calm and easy book that was comforting and interesting to read.
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
A lighthearted book of true anecdotes mostly on cows and a few other farm animals. It reads exactly like the secret life of cats/dogs tv show. It made perfect sense that the author anthropomorphised her animals - because why wouldn’t you? We do it for our pets all the time and after decades of running a farm I’m sure you would really start to learn the animal’s language. It’s silly to think animals do not have families or speak to one another, nor that we can get a sense of that through knowing them over time.
I didn’t feel this was a life changing read. It just was. I listened to it as an audiobook and liked her narration (I sped it up to 1.5x speed though). My main criticism is that everything felt a bit all over the place, as she warned in the foreword, there is no structure to the book and that made it hard to follow the anecdotes at times.
I didn’t feel this was a life changing read. It just was. I listened to it as an audiobook and liked her narration (I sped it up to 1.5x speed though). My main criticism is that everything felt a bit all over the place, as she warned in the foreword, there is no structure to the book and that made it hard to follow the anecdotes at times.
I believe this book was reissued following the success of ‘A Shepherd’s Life’ - it’s not a patch on that.
Glancing at other reviews it seems to have largely been read by vegetarians and vegan’s who obviously object to the author being so sure of the animals sentience and yet still eating them. I’m a meat eater but I tend to agree. I can completely agree that animals should be kept in more natural conditions and that if allowed to roam freely they will choose appropriate foods and locations. I’m less convinced that they ‘talk’ to each other about e.g. difficult labours - if they are that intelligent how could you then send them for slaughter?
Wouldn’t particularly recommend this book unless you’re a vegetarian who wants to get angry or someone who eats meat regardless of how the animals are kept - in that case I suppose it might just help convince you to eat free range/organic/higher welfare meat. Maybe?
Glancing at other reviews it seems to have largely been read by vegetarians and vegan’s who obviously object to the author being so sure of the animals sentience and yet still eating them. I’m a meat eater but I tend to agree. I can completely agree that animals should be kept in more natural conditions and that if allowed to roam freely they will choose appropriate foods and locations. I’m less convinced that they ‘talk’ to each other about e.g. difficult labours - if they are that intelligent how could you then send them for slaughter?
Wouldn’t particularly recommend this book unless you’re a vegetarian who wants to get angry or someone who eats meat regardless of how the animals are kept - in that case I suppose it might just help convince you to eat free range/organic/higher welfare meat. Maybe?
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
slow-paced
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
As someone who grew up on a farm I am clearly biased, but I found it entertaining.