Genres

Countryside

Lists

Route 66 Roadside Signs and Advertisements by Joe Sonderman

Main Street to Miracle Mile by Chester Liebs

The New Roadside America by Mike Wilkins

Roadside... y'all

58 books — 6 voters

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats

Countryside And Nature

17 books — 1 voter

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot

Memoirs of British country life

153 books — 18 voters

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston

The First Strawberries by Joseph Bruchac

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe

Rural Picturebooks

110 books — 7 voters

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

Books Set in the Countryside

157 books — 14 voters

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The Cottage Library

210 books — 41 voters

Featured News & Interviews

Readers’ 60 Most Anticipated Fall Books

Read »

“ There was so much time that marvelous summer. Day after day, mist rose from the meadow as the sky lightened and hedges, barns and woods took shape until, at last, the long curving back of the hills lifted away from the Plain. It was a sort of stage-magic. ”
― J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country

14 likes

“ THE MEETING" "Scant rain had fallen and the summer sun Had scorched with waves of heat the ripening corn, That August nightfall, as I crossed the down Work-weary, half in dream. Beside a fence Skirting a penning’s edge, an old man waited Motionless in the mist, with downcast head And clothing weather-worn. I asked his name And why he lingered at so lonely a place. “I was a shepherd here. Two hundred seasons I roamed these windswept downlands with my flock. No fences barred our progress and we’ THE MEETING" "Scant rain had fallen and the summer sun Had scorched with waves of heat the ripening corn, That August nightfall, as I crossed the down Work-weary, half in dream. Beside a fence Skirting a penning’s edge, an old man waited Motionless in the mist, with downcast head And clothing weather-worn. I asked his name And why he lingered at so lonely a place. “I was a shepherd here. Two hundred seasons I roamed these windswept downlands with my flock. No fences barred our progress and we’d travel Wherever the bite grew deep. In summer drought I’d climb from flower-banked combe to barrow’d hill-top To find a missing straggler or set snares By wood or turmon-patch. In gales of March I’d crouch nightlong tending my suckling lambs. “I was a ploughman, too. Year upon year I trudged half-doubled, hands clenched to my shafts, Guiding my turning furrow. Overhead, Cloud-patterns built and faded, many a song Of lark and pewit melodied my toil. I durst not pause to heed them, rising at dawn To groom and dress my team: by daylight’s end My boots hung heavy, clodded with chalk and flint. “And then I was a carter. With my skill I built the reeded dew-pond, sliced out hay From the dense-matted rick. At harvest time, My wain piled high with sheaves, I urged the horses Back to the master’s barn with shouts and curses Before the scurrying storm. Through sunlit days On this same slope where you now stand, my friend, I stood till dusk scything the poppied fields. “My cob-built home has crumbled. Hereabouts Few folk remember me: and though you stare Till time’s conclusion you’ll not glimpse me striding The broad, bare down with flock or toiling team. Yet in this landscape still my spirit lingers: Down the long bottom where the tractors rumble, On the steep hanging where wild grasses murmur, In the sparse covert where the dog-fox patters.” My comrade turned aside. From the damp sward Drifted a scent of melilot and thyme; From far across the down a barn owl shouted, Circling the silence of that summer evening: But in an instant, as I stepped towards him Striving to view his face, his contour altered. Before me, in the vaporous gloaming, stood Nothing of flesh, only a post of wood. ...more ”
― John Rawson, From The English Countryside: Tales Of Tragedy: Narrated In Dramatic Traditional Verse

5 likes

More quotes...