Garden History

The Garden Against Time is the No.1 Sunday Times bestseller from acclaimed writer Olivia Laing; a passionate, epic exploration of the power and possibilities of gardens. 'What a wonderful book this is' – Nigel Slater When Olivia Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown...

Mary Lennox, a spoiled, ill-tempered, and unhealthy child, comes to live with her reclusive uncle in Misselthwaite Manor after the death of her parents. With the help of a robin, Mary finds the door to a secret garden, neglected and hidden for years. When she decides to restore the garden in secret, the story becomes a charming journey into the places of the heart, where faith restores health, flowers refresh the spirit, and the magic of the garden brings happiness to Mary.

Brought to you by Puffin. It’s your LUCKY day! You’ve stumbled across an ancient treasure chest in your garden that was buried THOUSANDS of years ago by a child living in ancient Rome. And the chest is packed with 20 strange and curious items that tell us so much about their life, such as...

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2025* From the winner of the 2023 Wingate Literary Prize comes a fascinating and moving untold story of the Leningrad scientists who risked everything for the future of humanity *An Economist Book of the Year* 'An astonishing story...

The incomparable Simone Signoret (1921 - 1985), one of the grand actresses of the twentieth century and one of France's most notable stars, considered herself the "oldest discovery" in Hollywood. After years of blacklisting during the McCarthy era, she was 38 years old when she entered Hollywood through the back door in the 1959 British blockbuster Room at the Top. Her portrayal of the endearing Alice Aisgill earned her the Academy Award in 1960, the first French actor to win a coveted Oscar.

‘Based on meticulous research in original sources … Goodman illustrates vividly how adept [Banks] was … Shining a light on individuals whose achievements are relatively uncelebrated’ Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books A bold new history of how botany and global plant collecting –...

Brought to you by Penguin. This is a big history of little spaces, of nature in urban life, and of gardeners and their gardens through time In the heart of bustling European and American cities lies an overlooked yet vibrant corner of resilience, ingenuity and magic: our gardens. From...

The way we buy our food today feels so ordinary, so effortless, that it’s easy to forget what an extraordinary invention the supermarket really is. Once upon a time, shopping for essentials meant visiting a half-dozen different shops, waiting for clerks to fetch and weigh each item, and relying on personal relationships with local merchants. Fast-forward to the modern world, and the weekly shop takes place under bright lights in vast aisles stocked with everything imaginable — a world of instant choice, convenience, and abundance.

A dazzling, immersive work of historical fiction set in eighteenth-century London, where a young woman on the brink of fame and her father, both fugitives from enslavement, must fight to define – and defend – their freedom. Pearl was only an infant when her father, Daniel, seized a desperate...

Though a relatively young country, Italy’s culinary identity has been simmering for centuries, shaped by a shared gastronomic culture. From the dormice and garum of the Roman Empire to the heresy of pineapple pizza, A Bite-Sized History of Italy traces this legacy, offering a delicious romp through millennia of culinary tradition and transformation.

Humans have long turned to gardens—both real and imaginary—for sanctuary from the frenzy and tumult that surrounds them. Those gardens may be as far away from everyday reality as Gilgamesh’s garden of the gods or as near as our own backyard, but in their very conception and the marks they bear of human care and cultivation, gardens stand as restorative, nourishing, necessary havens.

Scions of a once-great southern Chinese family that produced the tutor of the last emperor, Jun and Hong were each other’s best friends until, in their twenties, they were separated at the end of the Chinese Civil War. One became a model Communist, the other a model capitalist. On Taiwan, Jun married a Nationalist general, established a trading company, and emigrated to the United States. On the Communist mainland, Hong built her medical career under a cloud of suspicion about her family and survived two waves of “re-education” before she was acclaimed for her achievements.

A selection of writings about gardens and gardening by six 19th-century women, compiled by Dee Palmer, a journalist and writer with a special interest in gardening. When she started the research for this audiobook, she expected to find many differences between the experiences of 19th-century women gardeners and those of today. Instead, she was struck by how modern much of their advice is, and her personal selection from the writings of these six women reflects that.

For more than two thousand years, tea has awakened, calmed, and connected people across continents and cultures. In A History of Tea, you'll travel with this extraordinary beverage on its global journey—from the tea houses of ancient China and the Zen temples of Japan to the colonial plantations of India and Sri Lanka, and into the teacups of Britain and beyond. Along the way, discover how tea shaped empires, sparked revolutions, and inspired rituals that still endure today.

« Je dédie ce livre à toutes celles et ceux qui ont aimé EDF, qui n’acceptent plus le montant de leurs factures d’électricité et souhaitent une transition énergétique sans la punition que l’on veut leur faire subir. Comme dans la fable, l’Allemagne a souvent l’image de la fourmi industrieuse et la France, celle de la cigale insouciante. Force est de constater que dans le domaine de l’énergie, les polarités sont inversées.

In Kings of the Garden, Adam J. Criblez traces the fall and rise of the New York Knicks between the 1973, the year they won their last NBA championship, and 1985, when the organization drafted Patrick Ewing and gave their fans hope after a decade of frustrations. During these years, the teams led by Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Bob McAdoo, Spencer Haywood, and Bernard King never achieved tremendous on-court success, and their struggles mirrored those facing New York City over the same span.

“Brilliant . . . smartly written, featuring tons of interviews with the Knicks of the Phil Jackson-Clyde-Reed era.” — New York Magazine “Harvey Araton has evocatively rendered the team that New York never stops pining for—the Old Knicks. More than a nostalgic chronicle . . . it’s a...

Packed with a wealth of information, this publication charts the evolution of garden design through a selection of some of our best-loved country house estates and historic gardens, including Hampton Court Palace, Chatsworth, Sissinghurst, and Kew. In addition, it also provides fascinating profiles on the geniuses who created some of our most inspirational gardens, including William Kent, Lancelot "Capability" Brown, Humphry Repton, Gertrude Jekyll, and Sir Joseph Paxton.

Get ready to devour America. Adam Richman, the exuberant host of Travel Channel’s Man v. Food and Man v. Food Nation, has made it his business to root out unique dining experiences from coast to coast. Now, he zeroes in on some of his top-favorite cities - from Portland, Maine, to Savannah, Georgia - to share his uproariously entertaining food travel stories, top finds, and some invaluable (and hilarious) cautionary tales.

An altogether different kind of book on English gardens—the first of its kind—a look at the history of England’s magnificent gardens as a history of Britain itself, from the seventeenth-century gardens of Charles II to those of Prince Charles today. In this rich, revelatory history, Sir...