There is a path that winds north through Kyoto, following the edge of the Higashiyama mountains toward the Temple of the Silver Pavilion. It is called Tetsugaku no Michi: the Philosopher’s Path. The twentieth-century philosopher Nishida Kitaro walked it each morning on his way to work, using the walk to think through the questions his day would require of him.
That is what Greenfields Press is for.
We publish short, carefully written books for people at significant moments in their professional lives. Not frameworks. Not systems. Not the habits of successful people distilled into a checklist. Books that take the experience of working life seriously as a subject for honest thought, and that are written with enough care and restraint to be worth reading slowly.
That is all you need to know.
But if you want more, here it is. Our story is in our name.
Greenfields
The name is not nostalgic. It does not refer to a simpler time or a quieter place. It refers to the particular quality of attention that becomes possible when you step away from the immediate demand and ask the more difficult question. The philosopher’s walk is not a retreat from the work. It is a different kind of engagement with it. Greenfields Press exists in that space: between the pressure of the professional world and the honest reflection that pressure tends to crowd out.
We are a UK publisher. We were registered at a kitchen table by people who had spent enough years in professional life to know that the most useful books on the subject had not yet been written. Not because the writers were not there, but because most publishing in this area rewards the confident and the prescriptive over the careful and the true. We wanted to publish the careful and the true.
Press
We started Greenfields Press at a time when most publishing advice said: write for the widest possible audience, lead with the solution, keep it practical, keep it short. That did not interest us. The books we wanted to read, and that we suspected other people wanted to read, were the ones that treated their readers as intelligent adults capable of sitting with complexity. That remains the only editorial standard we apply.
Our books are short by design. Not because we think brevity is a virtue in itself, but because a short book that says one true thing well is worth more than a long book that says many things imprecisely. Every title in The Path series can be read in a few hours. Most of them will take considerably longer, if they are read properly.
We publish one series. We intend to keep it that way for as long as the series has something genuine to say.
For general enquiries: hello@greenfieldspress.com
For submissions: submissions@greenfieldspress.com
For trade and rights enquiries: rights@greenfieldspress.com
All titles are available for translation rights.