Earthed

A courageous memoir for our uncertain times: Earthed is a story of the power of place to transform us, of dreams and nightmares on the land and of living in an unfamiliar world and a volatile mind.

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'A beautiful memoir of one small plot of land and one complex human mind; a story of our interconnection and an ambitious search for the truth.' Amy Liptrot

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

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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 season's 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 a strange land, we all need something to hold on to - a way to keep ourselves earthed.

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'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 of My Wild and Sleepless Nights

'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 of The Hungover Games

'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 of Thin 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 of Sway

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

'A moving, intriguing and beautifully conceived exploration of place, person and planet through time, Earthed speaks to the struggles of holding on during dark days and the power of hope in hard times.' Rob Cowen, author of Common Ground

About the Author

Rebecca Schiller is a writer, journalist and the author of Your No Guilt Pregnancy Plan (Penguin Life) and Why Human Rights in Childbirth Matter. She is cofounder and trustee of the human rights charity Birthrights and a regular contributor to the Guardian. Rebecca and her family raise a motley crew of goats, geese, ducks and chickens. They work their small plot to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers and restore wildlife to the land.