Once it is finished, this February blog post will be an annotated bibliography of the 22 garden books I’ve read in the last twelve months. The alphabetized list by author will be followed by my annotations, once those annotations are written. But until that day arrives, I’ll just offer a brief overview of the books and various ways they might be sorted.
• All the books were written in English by British or American authors (11 books by each nationality); there are no translations. Among the Americans there is one African-American and one Native-American author.
• Two of the books were collections of poetry and one book was a novel; the remaining 19 books would be classified as non-fiction.
• Twenty different publishers are represented; Timber Press and Thames & Hudson are the only publishers with two books. Six books were read on Kindle.
• Four books by Blythe, Buchan, and Lawrence are collections of previously published short texts.
• The first editions of nine books were published in the last four years; only the two books by Rohde and Warner were published prior to 1981.
• Six books were written by individuals who would likely be classified as professional gardeners and/or people who make their living writing about gardens. Most of the books focused on the authors’ experiences with their own or neighborhood gardens; however, two books recalled an author’s world-wide search for heirloom vegetable seeds (Anderson) or wild flowers in their native habitat (Thorogood).
• In most years I read several books on the history of gardens/gardening, but this year only Rohde’s The Story of the Garden would be classified as primarily historical. This is also the first year since I started composing these annual bibliographies when I did not read a single book on the practical tasks of growing and taking care of a flower and/or vegetable garden.
• While humor plays a role in several books, only the books by Fishman and Warner might be placed in the humor section of a book store.
• Graphic arts (paintings, photographs, and drawings) play a significant role in five books by Buchan, Hinkley, Jarman, Midda, and Thorogood.
The 22 Books
Alexander, Adam. The Seed Detective (Chelsea Green, 2022).
Blythe, Ronald. Next to Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside (John Murray, 2022).
________________. In the Artist’s Garden (Canterbury Press, 2013).
Buchan, Ursula. Garden People: The Photographs of Valerie Finnis (Thames & Hudson, 2007).
_________________, Editor. The Garden Anthology: Celebrating the Best Garden Writing from the Royal Horticultural Society (Frances Lincoln Limited, 2014).
Dark, Ben. The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 19 ½ Front Gardens (Mitchell Beazley, 2022).
Dungy, Camille. Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Simon & Schuster, 2023; read on Kindle)
Fishman, Jane. I Grew It My Way: How Not to Garden (Real People Publishing, 2016).
Goodrich, Charles. Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden (Silverfish Review Press, 2010).
Hinkley, Daniel J. Windcliff: A Story of People, Plants, and Gardens (Timber Press, 2020).
Jarman, Derek (with photographs by Howard Sooley, preface by Keith Collins). Derek Jarman’s Garden (Thames & Hudson, 1995).
__________________. Modern Nature (The Overlook Press, 1994).
Lawrence, Elizabeth (edited by Bill Neal). Through the Garden Gate (University of North Carolina Press, 1990).
Midda, Sara. In and Out of the Garden (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1981).
O’Brien, Andrew Timothy. To Stand and Stare (DK, 2023; read on Kindle)
Renkl, Margaret. The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year (Spiegel & Grau, 2023; read on Kindle)
Rohde, Eleanour Sinclair. The Story of the Garden (The Medici Society, 1933; read on Kindle)
Taylor, Tess. Leaning toward Light: Poems for Gardens & the Hands That Tend Them (Storey Publishing, 2023; read on Kindle).
Thorogood, Chris. Chasing Plants: Journeys with a Botanist through Rainforests, Swamps, and Mountains (Kew Publishing, 2022).
White, Katharine S. & Elizabeth Lawrence (edited by Emily Herring Wilson). Two Gardeners: A Friendship in Letters (Beacon Press, 2002).
Warner, Charles Dudley. My Summer in a Garden (HardPress, 2018; original edition in 1870; read on Kindle)
Wilson, Diane. The Seed Keeper (Milkweed Editions, 2021; read on Kindle).