No Fancy Life

By Charlotte Grey
July 2001
Book Guild, UK
ISBN: 1-85776-553-2
129 pages, illustrated
$27.50 hardcover


In No Fancy Life, a middle-aged man leaves an established career and, with his wife, moves to a farm high in the hills of Aberdeenshire, where a herd of suckler cows was to be their sole source of future income. His friends think he needs his head examined, but John Grey is as stubborn as they come, and a quick learner. He and his wife Charlotte manage to cope with extremes of weather, the isolation of the farm, the cussedness of animals and of people, and the strangeness and charm of the Doric tongue. Told with lyricism and a keen sense of the natural world, this a moving and inspirational book: poignant, funny, and often deeply moving. Includes 13 black & white photographs.

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