How long does it take to read The Shepherd's Life?
James Rebanks
The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks takes about 5 hours 38 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 38 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2015. 307 pages, about 84,425 words.
12 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 23 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 38 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 31 minutes |
The page count is the median across 2 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Some people's lives are entirely their own creations. James Rebanks' isn't. The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, his family have lived and worked in the Lake District of Northern England for generations, further back than recorded history. It's a part of the world known mainly for its romantic descriptions by Wordsworth and the much loved illustrated children's books of Beatrix Potter. But James' world is quite different. His way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand. It hasn't changed for hundreds of years: sending the sheep to the fells in the summer and making the hay; the autumn fairs where the flocks are replenished; the grueling toil of winter when the sheep must be kept alive, and the light-headedness that comes with spring, as the lambs are born and the sheep get ready to return to the hills and valleys.
Subjects: Sheep, Shepherds, Farm life, Biography, Farmers, Sheep, great britain