John Lewis-Stempel | |
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| Born | 1967 (age 56–57) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | Writer Farmer |
| Known for | Military and natural histories |
| Spouse | Penelope Lewis-Stempel |
John Lewis-Stempel is an English farmer, writer, and Sunday Times Top 5 best selling author.
Lewis-Stempel was born in Herefordshire in 1967, where his family have lived for over 700 years. [1] He read for an MA in History at Bristol.
He has written on a range of subjects from Native Americans to fatherhood, but specialises in military history and natural history under his family name.
He worked for Time Out during the late 1980s, and wrote across the New Statesman, The Independent and The Guardian under a pen name during the 1990s. [2]
Lewis-Stempel is a former columnist for The Sunday Express , and currently a columnist for Country Life and The Times. His Times column, Nature Notebook, focuses on both nature and farming across the UK. [3]
His column on nature and farming in Country Life won him Magazine Columnist of the Year in the 2016 BSME Awards. [4] His monthly column in The Countryman magazine began in March 2023.
Lewis-Stempel's book Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field won the Wainwright Prize and was also short-listed for BBC Countryfile 's Country Book of the Year 2014. In 2016 The Running Hare was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and a Sunday Times best seller, and was shortlisted for the 2017 Wainwright Prize, The Richard Jefferies Society Prize and the Independent Bookshop Week Book Award.
He won the 2017 Wainwright Prize with another shortlisted book, Where Poppies Blow , about British soldiers and their relationship with nature in World War I. [5] The Spectator has described him as 'the hottest nature writer around', [6] and The Times as 'Britain's finest living nature writer'. The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood , released in 2018, was also a Radio 4 Book of the Week, and Sunday Times top five bestseller. His history of farming in England, Woodston, published in 2021, also became a Sunday Times bestseller. [7]
La Vie, (2023) describes his experience in 'la France profonde'. [8] Labelled a 'poetic, sound-filled book', it saw Lewis-Stempel dubbed 'our finest nature and farming writer' by the Times Literary Supplement. [9]
Lewis-Stempel currently lives between South West France and the UK. [10] He has two children, Tristram and Freda, with his wife, Penelope. [11]
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Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field is a non-fiction book by British author John Lewis-Stempel, focusing on the natural history of an English field throughout a year. The book provides a detailed account of the flora and fauna of the English countryside and is notable for its deep observation and reflection on nature.
Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, The Great War is a non-fiction book by British author John Lewis-Stempel, focusing on the relationship between British soldiers and nature during World War I. The book explores how nature provided solace, distraction, and a sense of normalcy amidst the horrors of war.
The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood is a non-fiction book by British author John Lewis-Stempel. Written in a diary format, it chronicles Lewis-Stempel's experiences managing Cockshutt Wood, a mixed woodland in Herefordshire. The book, which covers the final year of his stewardship, reflects on the importance of such woodlands in the British countryside and their rich biodiversity.
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