Jenny Uglow

“I think that Jenny Uglow is an absolutely wonderful writer. Her book The Lunar Men was an important book that marked the beginning of the very interesting form of group biography, where you don’t have to begin with birth and end with death but you can just pick the best bits. I once heard her explain that a group biography is like an opera: some people are singing solo and others duets, while others appear only in the choir. I think that’s a good metaphor and I was tempted to choose that book. But in the end I went for this because of the topic of gardening. Uglow’s writing is very light yet without losing any of the weight of research. Like Schama and Ellis, she’s very good at picking stories that reveal broader things and it’s a nice, galloping ride through why the English are so obsessed with gardens, which is very much a foundation of the nation. I think it’s just a delightful story of English history told through plants, and the absolutely mad individuals who, for example, spend their time engaging hermits to be set up in their gardens. And she does it which such self-assurance, starting with the Romans and coming all the way up to the present day. She leaves out whole chunks but she leaves out the bits that are quite boring. And she writes really engagingly.” Read more...

The best books on Horticulture

Andrea Wulf, Historian