Earthed - Rebecca Schiller

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'A beautiful memoir of one small plot of land and one complex human mind.'Amy Liptrot

'A timely reflection on what it means to be human, and the redemptive power of nature.'Charlotte Philby
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What happens when the good life is harder than anything you ever imagined?

After moving to a countryside smallholding, Rebecca Schiller finds her family's new life is far from simple. Overwhelmed by what she has taken on and reeling from the turmoil in the wider world, her mind begins to unravel. And so she turns to her two acres, and to the women of this land's past, searching for answers and hope.

Here, she stumbles on a wild space of imaginative leaps, where she begins to uncover the hidden layers of her plot's history - and of herself. As the seasons shift, the ground under Rebecca's boots offers hard lessons, delivering unflinching glimpses of damage done to peoples and the planet and revealing brutal truths about the seeds she holds in her hands.

Yet as a New Year arrives, offering a life-changing diagnosis and then a global pandemic, Rebecca begins to move forwards with understanding: the smallholding has become her anchor and her family's shelter; an ancient oak tree her talisman and her guide.Because when we find ourselves lost in an unknown land, we all need something to hold on to - a way to keep ourselves earthed.

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'When you think about ADHD . . . do you picture a woman in the bucolic English countryside, raising her children along with an assortment of animals and vegetables? Why not?'Salon.com

'A stunner. Full of wisdom about the world we are all looking at with new eyes.'Emma Freud

'Incredibly bold, brave, poetic and absolutely beautiful. The "how I moved to a field and had a breakdown book" that desperately needed to be written.'Sophie Heawood, author ofThe Hungover Games

'A powerfully confessional memoir that excavates important truths about our lives, our selves and our dreams - and what happens when we have to let go.'Clover Stroud, author ofMy Wild and Sleepless Nights

'A book interwoven with many difficult and beautiful things: breakdown and worry alongside women and interconnectedness; poppies and eggs beside struggle and confusion... This is a book that will reshape how you view the world.'Kerri ni Dochartaigh, author ofThin Places

'A much-needed story of resilience drawing on the histories of the people who have gone before and to whom this land once belonged.'Dr Pragya Agarwal, author ofSway

'A deeply moving, gritty memoir of hope, disenchantment and unravelling that reads like a song.'Laetitia Maklouf, author ofThe Five-Minute Garden

'Earthedspeaks to the struggles of holding on during dark days and the power of hope in hard times.'Rob Cowen, author ofCommon Ground