The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise

What a wonderful book this is. I loved the enchanting and beautifully written story but also the fascinating and thoughtful excursions along the way -- Nigel Slater A sharp and enthralling memoir of the garden's contradiction: dream and reality, life and death, the fascination of cultivation and the political horrors that it can disguise -- Neil Tennant Laing probes important questions about land ownership and exclusion and the human drive to create paradise on earth. All the while, her elegant prose bewitches and beguiles. A truly wonderful read. -- Sue Stuart-Smith, author of The Well Gardened Mind No one writes with more energy and ecstasy than Olivia Laing. This book is what we need right now: paradise, regained -- Philip Hoare This book is as imaginatively structured and full of beauties and surprises as the garden whose creation it documents. -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett, author of The Pike: Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War Every generation gets one perect book about gardens and this is ours -- Julie Bell Olivia Laing is a marvellous writer. So prepare yourself to be enchanted. -- Jilly Cooper The most magical writing, intimate, insightful, learned and brilliant. -- Jeremy Lee, restaurateur and author of Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many An extraordinary and important work. I felt doubly alive after reading it. The book is an inspiration. -- Celia Paul, author of Self-Portrait It takes its rightful place in the constellation that includes Jamaica Kincaid, Russell Page, Derek Jarman, and Jenny Uglow -- Neel Mukherjee A magisterial work, and the exacting sensuality of her garden writing is pure pleasure, delight, surprise. It is a triumph, from a writer at the height of her powers -- Francesca Segal Quite literally unputdownable. It is astonishing, funny, beautiful, wise, charming and truthful. -- Jinny Blom, author of What Makes a Garden A sensational work, somehow encompassing so many diverse preoccupations with a confidence and control that kept me spellbound. -- Isabel Bannerman Olivia Laing has written a book about making her garden, which is by turns lyrical, consoling, disturbing and inspiring. It's a book for thinking gardeners everywhere -- Mary Keen Powerful, reflective and captivating to read - I loved it. -- Fergus Garrett Intellectually stimulating, vibrant . . . Suffused with Laing's distinctively skillful prose, this book is an impressive achievement . . . [a] verdant and emotionally rich narrative journey * Kirkus Reviews *