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The Lie of the Land

Who Really Cares for the Countryside?

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The Lie of the Land

By: Guy Shrubsole
Narrated by: Guy Shrubsole
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WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION 2025

A WATERSTONES AND GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2024

'Both dynamite and medicine' AMY-JANE BEER

'Timely and rousing' THE TIMES

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The lie of the land: that Britain’s landowners care for the countryside.

Our landowning elite are paid billions of taxpayer pounds to be good stewards. But these same landowners have carelessly trampled over our best-loved landscapes, leaving the rivers polluted, fenlands drained, and moorlands burned.

Guy Shrubsole has travelled across Britain to expose the lie and meet the communities fighting back to restore our lost landscapes. This is a bold, shared vision for our nation’s wild places, and how we can treat them with the awe and care they deserve.

*Guy Shrubsole's The Lost Rainforests of Britain was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 2023-04-30*

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE WESTMINSTER BOOK AWARDS*

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE UNWIN AWARD*

©2024 Guy Shrubsole (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers Ecosystems & Habitats Environment Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Politics & Government Rural Science Sociology
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Critic reviews

'Timely and rousing' The Times
'It couldn't be more relevant' James O'Brien
'A very, very good book' John Harris, The Guardian
'A fascinating exposé' The i
'Urgent and essential' Caroline Lucas
'Exhilarating, insightful and bristling with rightful indignation' Lee Schofield
'The unjust impositions of historic land ownership blight all our lives – here Guy shows why’ Chris Packham
'This unflinching, illuminating book manages to be both dynamite and medicine' Amy-Jane Beer
'What a book! Vitally important, and superbly written' Aaron Bastani
‘Shrubsole has the belly fire of a campaigner but the precision of an historian’ Roger Mortlock
‘A heartfelt, historically resonant call to reject the myth that private landownership delivers good stewardship of nature' Corinne Fowler
‘A smart, peaceful and practical plan for how we can turn this land into our land’ Patrick Barkham
‘If you care about our environment, read this book’ Sir John Lawton CBE FRS
‘This book beautifully subverts the central orthodoxy of England’ Nick Hayes
'This is Guy Shrubsole’s best book yet' Mark Avery
‘An eye-opening read, both alarming and uplifting in equal measure … If you want to be part of the change, start here’ This England
'Compelling … a timely and important book’ Geographical Magazine
'Genuinely jaw-dropping … bristling with energy and ideas' Martha Dillon
‘As England struggles with its post-Brexit identity, the lie of the land matters deeply’ Tim Lang
‘At once shocking and comforting, scathing and uplifting. A book on this subject shouldn't be so readable. A triumph’ Sophie Pavelle
‘His articulate fervour, seasoned with humour, shouts from every page. He throws down a timely gauntlet to centuries of tradition’ Tom Heap
‘Extraordinary. An affirmation of another kind of rural life that exists within this lie, and all the possibilities that are open to us if we defy it’ Nicola Chester
'Radical and urgent, measured and considered … an essential place to start’ Dr Rose O’Neill, Campaign for National Parks
All stars
Most relevant
Well researched, well written and well read. An incredibly insightful book that moves and inspires.

A must listen for all

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Great information and suggestions about the current state of affairs of land ownership and how it could change. Also shows how some, but not all, landowners should be ashamed and a call that it is time that they should be held to account. Fingers crossed.

Great and annoying at the same time

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I can't really fault this book, in the line of other Guy Shrubsole writings, it's about our nature, who owns it and abuses it. The evidence is clearly laid out and sources quoted (in a very appealing way, not at all dry or boring) to show us how land has been withdrawn from us.

As Scotland has the right to roam, so should we in England, it is just as much our nature than anyone else's. This book covers the history, the ownership, failures of stewardship, the abuse of the land and how money drives the environmental decline of rural sites, including SSSI's.

A must read book, in my opinion, and the fact that it gives simple actions to right all the listed wrongs, is a manual for looking after and protecting our natural surroundings.

How what is for all of us is restricted by a few

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Well researched and organised account of the environmental and human cost of historic land ownership models in Britain.
A thoughtful call to protest and a plea to change our mindsets regarding the public ownership of our open spaces for the benefit of all.

Insightful account of consequences of private of land ownership

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Really well researched, chronicled clearly to allow the reader the depth of understanding of the generational depravity of the so called ‘stewards of the land’.
A truly emotive read.

Eye opening

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