Along Came a Llama

My Family and Other Animals meets The Secret Life of Cows: this rediscovered gem of a memoir tells the charming tale of how a baby llama transformed a Welsh farming family forever (with a foreword by John Lewis-Stempel)

Things llamas like:
Snaffling cherry brandy, Easter eggs, and the Radio Times.
Fluttering movie star eyelashes at surprised visitors.
Curling up in 'tea-cosy' position by the fire.
Orbiting, helicoptering, and oompahing.
Humming along to classical music.
Locking victims in the lavatory.

Things llamas dislike:
Having toenails trimmed by a visiting circus.
Being adopted mother to an orphaned lamb.
Invitations to star on Blue Peter.
Accidentally swimming.
Snowdonia's rainfall.
The dark.

Ruth Ruck's family live on a Welsh mountain farm, no strangers to cow pats on the carpet and nesting hens in the larder. When dark days strike, they embark on a farming experiment to cheer them all up - but raising a baby llama proves more of an adventure than expected .

Reissued with a new foreword by John Lewis-Stempel, Along Came a Llama is a delightful 1970s farming classic: a charming, witty potrait of country life that will warm the hearts of animal lovers everywhere.

'Full of soul ... One departs this book a convinced llama-lover ... Certainly, Along Came a Llama has a Durrellian-recollection-of-family-life-with-unusual-pet spirit about it. But it is so much more. It is a guide to the future. To a good life.' John Lewis-Stempel