Fencing Paradise
  • Published: 26 June 2017
  • ISBN: 9781909513105
  • Imprint: Eden Project Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $25.00
Categories:

Fencing Paradise

The Uses and Abuses of Plants

Formats & editions
EBook
30 Nov 2011
Paperback
26 Jun 2017
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Triggered by visits to the Eden Project, Britain's foremost countryside writer is on top form as he discusses specific plants, plant hunters, what we mean by Paradise, and other botanical and ecological ideas.

In this remarkable journal of visits to Eden, Mabey transports his reader from Cornwall to the Mediterranean to the Tropics, from Old World to New, from present to personal memory, to new perspectives on our collective artistic and emotional past. Sensuous and evocative, exquisitely written, his new book challenges the reader to look differently at the world, and our place in the landscape. At the same time, Mabey is controversial in his views about what we mean by buzz words like 'renewable', or 'sustainable', and he is highly provocative in his final response to the Eden Project itself.
  • Published: 26 June 2017
  • ISBN: 9781909513105
  • Imprint: Eden Project Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $25.00
Categories:

About the author

Richard Mabey

Richard Mabey is the acclaimed author of some thirty books including Gilbert White, which won the Whitbread Biography Award in 1986, Flora Britannica(1995), winner of a National Book Award, and Nature Cure (2005), which was short-listed for three major literary awards, the Whitbread, Ondaatje, and J.R. Ackerley prizes. He writes for the Guardian, New Statesman and Granta, and contributes frequently to BBC radio. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Also by Richard Mabey

Turning the Boat for Home
Dreams Of The Good Life
The Ash and The Beech
A Brush With Nature
Wild Cooking
Nature Cure
The Full English Cassoulet
See all

Praise for Fencing Paradise

A remarkable, beautifully written, exquisite book on botanical and ecological ideas, inspired by visits to the Eden Project. Subtitled "The Uses and Abuses of Plants", it's a gem.

The Bookseller

The author structures his book with a journey through the biotopia of the Eden Project in Cornwall, from where he darts off in history and geography to offer sparkling mini-essays on specific herbs and plants and more general matters botanical and ecological.

Steven Poole, Guardian

Even if you're not especially interested in the Eden Project, there is plenty here to fascinate. Mabey's writing is richly evocative, his breadth of reference enormous.

Neville Hawcock, FT Magazine

Fencing Paradise is nothing like a guide to the place, but to read it while visiting the Eden Project is the equivalent of adding clotted cream to strawberries.

Jane Owen, Friends magazine
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