Forthcoming: Milkweed Editions June 3, 2025
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“Helen Whybrow is a to-the-bone writer, and this is a to-the-bone book—beautiful, real, full of life.” —Bill McKibben
”Riveting, breath-taking, intensely powerful—The Salt Stones pulses with life. I deeply love this wise and beautiful book.” —Janisse Ray
"Her writing is clean and compelling, very specific and visceral and at the same time, suggestive of a rich emotional landscape and life…in being so much about one thing it somehow becomes about the whole world." —Pam Houston
“There is so much suffering and separation in the world right now. We are separated from ourselves and from nature. [This] book is an antidote. It’s a direct line to our need for kinship with the natural world. It’s a beautifully told set of stories that are ultimately about a way of seeing and a way to be in relationship.” —Sandra Keats, producer of The Biggest Little Farm
"In her poetic and provocative offerings on her life as a shepherd to a flock of Icelandic sheep, Helen Whybrow evokes the spirit that Aretha Franklin brought to her transcendent recording of 'Somewhere' (from West Side Story). Read Whybrow. Listen to Franklin. Rejoice. "
—Evelyn C. White, author of Alice Walker: A Life
“Sheep have helped me become a good shepherd, not just to them, but to a place that is my sustenance and joy as well as my unending labor and worry.”
In the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains, Helen Whybrow and her partner set out to restore an old two-hundred-acre farm. Knowing that “belonging more than anything requires participation,” they begin to intertwine their lives with the land. But soon after releasing a flock of Icelandic sheep onto the worn-out fields, Whybrow realizes that the art of shepherding extends far beyond the flock and fences of Knoll Farm.
In prose both vivid and lean, The Salt Stones offers an intimate and profoundly moving story of what it means to care for a flock and truly inhabit a piece of land. The shepherd’s life unfolds for Whybrow in the seasons and cycles of farming and family—birthing lambs, fending off coyotes, rescuing lost sheep in a storm, and raising children while witnessing her mother’s decline. Exploring the interdependence of animals, as well as of the earth and ourselves, Whybrow reflects on the ways sheep connect her to place, to herself and to the ancient practice of shepherding.
Evocative, affectionate, and illuminating, The Salt Stones sings of a way of life that is at once ancient and entirely contemporary, inspiring us all to seek greater intimacy and a sense of belonging wherever our home place may be.
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The Audio Edition of The Salt Stones will be available June 3, 2025 on all your favorite listening platforms.
Bookseller Praise for The Salt Stones
“One of the great gifts of the writers we love is so delicately, artfully, placing the lifeways of their characters in our mind that we can fully imagine and experience them as ourselves. Whether they are human, animal or even relational to things and landscapes, what a feat of magic. Read this one, for a shepherd's life, the lives they live with, and the landscapes they fully inhabit. Beautiful, telling, and so fully human. We need that.”
— John Evans, Camino Books“The Salt Stones joins the pantheon of great pastoral literature. Whybrow’s memoir is full of grace, and lessons, and thoughtful meditations on what it is to live in this world, on this land, with these animals, with these people.”
— Hannah Harlow, Bookshop at Beverly Farms“25 years ago Whybrow traded a career writing and editing books to care for a flock of Icelandic sheep on a 200-acre farm in Vermont. Fortunately for us, she kept notes and this beautifully written memoir/meditation on the art of shepherding, caring for the land and for each other is the reward. With such powerful, moving and lyrical writing, her grocery lists would be worth reading.”
— Sarah Goddin, McIntyre’s Books“A beautifully written memoir of Helen's life as a shepherd in Vermont. She intricately weaves her story into the fibers of the natural world. This book will be perfect for fans of Braiding Sweetgrass and The Comfort of Crows.”
— Cathy Fiebach, Main Point Books“A deeply reflective book on living and working closely with nature and the tremendous challenges inherent in caring for a flock. The Salt Stones made me consider what it's like to constantly be responsible for the lives (and deaths) of animals. Whybrow and her family spend a lot of time literally herding sheep. But 'shepherd'-- the noun and the verb--means so much more and Whybrow embodies it fully as she lays her heart on the page in this instant classic of nature literature.”
— Stan Hynds, The Northshire Bookstore“A stunningly beautiful memoir of connecting to and caring for place through shepherding; a way of being in the world that enriches rather than destroys it. Take the time to slow down and share the seasons of a farm, and of a life, with all the joy and heartbreak it brings. There are gentle lessons for us all. Love, love, love this book!”
— Alana Haley, Schuler Books“We live in a world where too many of us are afraid of our pets, terrified of mice and spiders. Where mowing the lawn or playing a round of golf is our primary contact with the natural world. Helen Whybrow’s beautifully written The Salt Stones will immerse you in another world, one lived by the bulk of humanity for most of history and lived still by many around the globe. This is a book about relationships and connections: to land, to animals, to nature and its cycles, to people, to traditional knowledge and the wisdom embedded in it. It is a book about attention and intention, and time, and it requires us, if we are to subvert the ongoing ecological and emotional crisis of our time. It belongs on your shelf next to Barry Lopez, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and Robert Macfarlane; its lessons embedded in your heart and soul.”
— Jonathan Welch, Talking Leaves Bookstore“The Salt Stones is a beautiful written memoir not only about Helen Whybrow’s farming life in rural Vermont, but her story covers so much more. She describes the complexities of raising and grass-feeding Icelandic Sheep, the history of New England farming, and the ties that bind New England farmers. We read about her commitment to eco-restoration of the land after the centuries of unsettling America’s natural balance. This lovely and thoughtful book is a meditation on the interconnectedness of nature, on mothering children and the environment, and a wonderful gift to readers and booksellers.”
— Joan Grenier, The Odyssey Bookshop“In a time filled with so much urgency, this meditative, lyrical book is exactly what I needed. Helen Whybrow's prose is as grounding as it is inquisitive, and as fervent as it is gentle. We could all learn a thing or two from sheep.”
— Amali Gordon-Buxbaum, Books Are Magic“Helen Whybrow's The Salt Stones gives me the same feelings I get reading the great bucolic English writers about farming life--Herriot and now Hamer--but she's our own. It seems immensely hopeful despite the number of things crashing down around us that she, her husband, and children are putting one foot in front of another to raise sheep in partnership with a meadow in Vermont. Run, don't walk.”
— Kelly Barth, The Raven Bookstore“While The Salt Stones is rooted in the cycle of a year on the farm, many passages overlap and diverge in resonance over full lifetimes. Yet always, there is the unspoken bond between the sheep and their human caretakers, and the connections within the small but vibrant local community, that invigorate the routines of the seasons. It is a joy to encounter such a sensitive and beautifully written account of farming life. Fans of James Rebanks and Robin Wall Kimmerer will not want to miss this.”
— Peter Sherman, Wellesley Books“Oh breath of fresh air, how I needed you so! And along comes Helen Whybrow to make me yearn for greener pastures and spoil me with exquisite writing. If you have ever daydreamed about running away to the countryside, Whybrow gives us a level eyed look at a shepherd's life, love, motherhood, and living a fairly self-sufficient life in season. Did I mention the exquisite writing?”
— Keebe Fitch, McIntyre's Books“Is there a place in which you are grounded, where you feel more truly at home than any other place on earth? Helen Whybrow has experienced that kind of grounding in two places: the farm where she grew up, and the farm where she now lives. This beautiful book takes us, as the subtitle promises, through the “Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life.” Late winter/early spring is lambing time, and the book starts with these words, “With my fingertips in the dark, I can feel a nose and two feet.” I was immediately captivated, and I think you will be, as well. From this beginning, it’s clear that Whybrow’s grounding in the farm is visceral. As she takes us through the seasons of the shepherd’s life (the book actually covers about twenty years of her life), we join her in the birthing of lambs, in the muck of life on a sheep farm, in reciprocal relationships with neighbors, and in the joys and heartaches of her family life. The writing of The Salt Stones is beautiful, and the reflections on life lived in harmony with the natural words are insightful. Don’t miss this book!
— Sally Wizik Wills, Beagle and Wolf Books & Bindery
Follow Helen on Substack
Occasional essays, reflective and vivid, full of the unexpected, about a life lived close to the land, animals and the seasons.