Browsing by a fire in a faraway bothy

Modern reading habits have changed — or, perhaps more accurately, the plethora of books and articles readily available via the internet have altered people’s reading habits. It’s not only the way we read; it’s how much time we spend doing so. In busy lives, we are far more likely to quickly flick across the screen of an iPhone than sit down at leisure and read a ‘proper’ book.

There are, of course, certain occasions that permit perusal of the pastoral-related written word. When going on holiday, for instance or, as the Editor of this magazine suggested to me recently, “if you were to go away to a remote shooting lodge with a gun, cartridges and a load of sherry, in the hope of shooting a load of snipe”.

Evenings spent sitting beside a fire burning in the hearth of an isolated bothy would interviewer — “which books would you actually take?”