National Book Award
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD. A luminous meditation on shepherding, belonging, and connection to place in Vermont’s Green Mountains. Through seasons of tending Icelandic sheep, Helen Whybrow discovers profound truths about family, motherhood, and our relationship with the earth. Revelatory and magical.
$26.00
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
In this luminous memoir, Helen Whybrow invites us into the quiet rhythms of shepherding life in Vermont’s Green Mountains. The Salt Stones isn’t just a book about farming—it’s a meditation on what it means to truly belong to a place, to let the land shape you as much as you shape it.
When Whybrow and her partner set out to restore a worn-out two-hundred-acre farm, they begin with Icelandic sheep and discover something far more profound. Through seasons of birthing lambs, fending off coyotes, and rescuing lost animals in storms, she finds that shepherding extends beyond flock and fence—it becomes a way of understanding family, motherhood, and our connection to the earth itself.
Written in prose that The Washington Post‘s Maureen Corrigan calls “revelatory…magical,” this National Book Award longlisted work weaves together the ancient practice of tending sheep with the contemporary challenges of raising children and witnessing a parent’s decline. Featured on NPR’s Fresh Air and named one of Esquire‘s “Best Books of Summer 2025,” Whybrow’s intimate storytelling illuminates the interdependence of animals, land, and ourselves.
For anyone seeking greater connection to place—whether you’re drawn to sustainable living, nature writing, or simply beautiful storytelling—The Salt Stones offers wisdom that feels both timeless and urgently needed. It’s a book that lingers, like salt air on skin, long after the final page.
revelatory...magical
A gorgeous meditation on what it means to live close to the land and the animals that share it with us. Whybrow writes with precision and tenderness about the rhythms of shepherding, motherhood, and the deep knowledge that comes from paying attention.
Whybrow's prose is as clear and bracing as mountain air. This is nature writing at its finest—intimate, philosophical, and utterly absorbing.
A beautiful, contemplative look at rural life that never romanticizes the hard work or the heartbreak. Whybrow has written a book that feels essential for our disconnected times.
| Weight | 1.74 lbs |
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| Fiction Type | |
| Book Author | |
| Subject | Agricultural Sciences, Animal Husbandry, Biographies & Memoirs, By Region, Conservation, Crafts, Hobbies & Home, Engineering, Engineering & Transportation, Environmentalists & Naturalists, Family Relationships, Gardening & Landscape Design, Home Improvement & Design, Memoirs, Motherhood, Nature & Ecology, Parenting, Parenting & Relationships, Parenting Girls, Professionals & Academics, Science & Math, Sustainable Living |
| Accolade |
12 Perkins Cove Rd,
Ogunquit, ME 03907
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