PREVIEWER’S PERSPECTIVE SEASON HIGHLIGHTS Previewer’s perspective


Gardening and politics books make their mark this coming spring


This spring is marked by books ranging from gardening titles, to D-Day commemorations and, with a general election on the cards, books that investigate the state of the nation


Caroline Sanderson Associate editor


S


pring is sprung, the grass is riz. Or will be by the time you read thiz. As a keen gardener, it’s a time of year I love, and this season there are two marvellous books about gardens to savour as well. There’s The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise (May), Olivia Laing’s “personal yet inventive” exploration of the notion of earthly paradise and its long association with gardens both real and imagined.


And the man oſten dubbed “the godfather of nature


writers”, the great Richard Mabey, brings us The Accidental Garden, in which he centres not the humans potering in our gardens but the myriads of other organisms who abide there, all with their own lives to lead. Beyond the garden fence, this spring brings books anticipating the 80th anniversary of D-Day in June, including Sword Beach by Stephen Fisher and Allen Packwood and Richard Dannat’s Churchill’s D-Day.


And then: ring, ring! Also in


June, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Waterloo. “That’s the ABBA album, not the batle” as the blurb to My My! by Giles Smith cannot resist quipping.


With a general election on the cards this year, politics and the state of the nation loom large in the publishing schedules. Among the books which take this country apart and try and build it back beter are This Time No Mistakes by Will Huton; and What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except The British) by Michael Peel. However, some of this season’s most striking current affairs titles look way beyond domestic politics to consider issues that face the world at large – something that the broad canvas of a book is ideally suited to do. Grace


With a general election on the cards this year, politics and the state of the nation loom large in the publishing schedules


OLIVIA LAING


Blakeley’s Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom for one; along with one of my Ten Titles Not to Miss, Layal Liverpool’s equally brilliant-sounding Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Ill. Gardens might sound merely a refuge from all this mess. But even our garden writers get in on the act of building a beter world. Olivia Laing through the search for new modes of living and paradises we all have access to. And Richard Mabey, centring the garden as metaphor for how all living things can find a place to dwell and thrive.


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You can find Caroline on Twitter (@carosanderson), or make contact via email (caroline.sanderson@thebookseller.com)


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The Bookseller Buyer’s Guide Non-Fiction


© Liz Seabrook


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