By Hook or by Crook

I apologise.
This is a truly cringy title but my plan was to discuss the issue of finding an angle or ‘hook’ for my monthly blogs, then move on to review A Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks so once the phrase arrived in my head there was no dislodging it. Like sniggering at fart jokes and putting silly answers on questionnaires ( only if they’re anonymous of course ) I can’t resist the temptation to go for a quick, often juvenile, pleasure fix. I like to think this makes me a fun person though it’s more likely it makes me a prat. Needless to say, I love puns: when a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds or If you jump off a Paris bridge you are in Seine tickle me. This is why I can never be one of them interlectuals.
To try and claw back some credibility, there is a link, albeit a tenuous one, here. James Rebank, like his father and grandfather, is a shepherd in the Lake District. School bored him and, having spent most of his time there messing around, he left as soon as he could to work on the family farm. His book is a brilliant unsentimental description of sheep farming while at the same time raising questions about our relationship with the land and with animals, about new farming methods and about tourism. But if that sounds a bit worthy and dry (being non-fiction and about nature this book did not feature on my wish list – indeed, I can’t remember how it came into my possession ) believe me it’s not. At its heart A Shepherd’s Life explores the concept of identity: once he has discovered the joy of books and learning Rebank takes A levels at night class and wins a place at Oxford ( this all seems to happen a bit easily and quickly – I suspect it wasn’t so in real life ) Yet even after graduating and getting a ‘proper’ job he continues shepherding, something that’s in his blood ( incidentally, blood gets a lot of mentions. As does shit and castration. Wordsworth’s golden daffodil filled Lake District this ain’t ) In doing this, he confounds expectations both of what a shepherd and what an intellectual should be.
In the same way that I learnt about falconry in H for Hawk, I acquired much information about the history and practice of sheep farming in A Shepherd’s Life. But for me this is incidental. As I’ve said many times before, I read for insight not information. The book is memorable because it combines some beautiful writing with humour, wit and self-deprecation: I’m not surprised it’s been such a big hit.
Please note – there are many puns around sheep to be made and I have resisted.