One could be forgiven for wondering if a book on a shepherd’s life would be approachable, relatable, or even readable, but Barbara McLean is more than a shepherd. A gifted storyteller with an enviable vocabulary and effortless prose, McLean takes the reader through her titular Life with wit, humour, knowledge, and empathy. As the year unfolds in the pages of Shepherd’s Sight: A Farming Life, we traverse through half a century working, growing, and learning to live on McLean’s farm. This is a love letter to rural living and an invitation to slow down and rediscover the magic of the everyday. The book’s conceit of spanning fifty years in one is a brilliant literary play on time: arranged by months, each chapter looks back to McLean’s first years on the farm and over the whole experience to the present. She laments her aging body, but not the journey through which it aged. The reader is pleased to find that McLean’s sturdy sight has left little unturned in her rural life: not only are the daily challenges of shepherding unfurled, but also an appreciation for all the animals, domesticated and feral, that colour her daily life, as well as neighbours and colleagues. It is a unique view into an antiquated world of steadfast beauty and function; of practices as foreign to the average reader as they are necessary to understand the miracles of modern living. Barbara McLean lived her bucolic life for her own reasons, but thanks to her masterful storytelling in Shepherd’s Sight, readers can live vicariously through her. For fans of The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks or anyone seeking a deeper connection to the natural world, Shepherd’s Sight is a must-read. As the months roll on through the pages, readers see a life moving perpetually and unceasingly forward, through an age of modernity that can only increase, like a plow that leaves the land behind it violently changed, yet ready and eager to support new life. Impossible to read without smiling, Barbara McLean’s Shepherd’s Sight: A Farming Life is the transformative experience you didn’t know you needed to understand, and it’s a journey you’ll likely not soon forget. Pick it up today and lose yourself in a world where every day is an ode to resilience, community, and nature’s enduring beauty. —CANREADS CALGARY BOOK REVIEWShepherd’s Sight: A Farming Life