Anna Pavord – författare

A glorious photographic record of the postwar English gardening scene by one of the people at its epicentre. Roald Dahl and his family in their garden at Great Missenden; Nancy Lancaster, society hostess and interior designer, sporting an elegant straw sombrero and snipping delicately at her roses; Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst – these and many other dedicated gardeners are captured here by the discerning eye of Valerie Finnis. With a spectacular cast of characters at home in their gardens, weeding, inspecting, watering and standing proudly by their plants, wearing the clothes and fashions of the day, and epitomizing life and society in the second half of the 20th century, this book will be devoured by anyone with a love of British gardens or horticulture in general.

Searching for Order traces the search for order in the natural world, a search that for hundreds of years occupied some of the most brilliant minds in Europe. Redefining man's relationship with nature was an important feature of the Renaissance. But in a world full of plagues and poisons, there was also a practical need to name and recognise different plants: most medicines were made from plant extracts. Anna Pavord takes us on a thrilling adventure into botanical history, travelling from Athens in the third century BC, through Constantinople, Venice, the medical school at Salerno to the universities of Pisa and Padua. The journey, traced here for the first time, involves the culture of Islam, the first expeditions to the Indies and the first settlers in the New World. In Athens, Aristotle's pupil, Theophrastus, is the first man ever to write a book about plants. What should these things properly be called, he asks. How can we sort and order them? The debate continues still, two thousand years later. Gradually, over a long period in Europe, plants assumed identities and acquired names. Artists painted the first pictures of them.Plants acquired the two-part names that show how they are related to other plants. But who began all this work, and how was it done? Searching for Order gives a compelling insight into a world full of intrigue and intensely competitive egos.

In The Curious Gardener, Anna Pavord brings together in 12 chapters - one from each month of the year - 72 pieces on all aspects of gardening. From what to do in each month and how to get the best from flowers, plants, herbs, fruit and vegetables, through reflections on the weather, soil, the English landscape and favourite old gardening clothes, to office greenery, spring in New York, waterfalls, Derek Jarman and garden design, Anna Pavord always has something interesting to say and says it with great style and candour.The perfect book to guide you through the gardening year and, on days when the weather keeps the most courageous gardener indoors, the perfect book to curl up with beside the fire.

A ravishing celebration of landscape, its iridescent beauty and its potential to comfort, awe and mesmerise.Landskipping explores the different ways in which we have, throughout the ages, responded to the land, beginning in the eighteenth century when artists first started to paint English scenery, and the Lakes, as well as Snowdon, began to attract a new kind of visitor, the landscape tourist. Meanwhile, at the same time, an entirely different band of people, the agricultural improvers, also travelled the land, looking at it in terms of its usefulness as well as its beauty. What emerges as universal then and now is a place’s capacity to frame and define our experience.Moving from the rolling hills of Dorset to the peaks of the Scottish Highlands, this is an exquisite and compelling book, written by Anna Pavord with zest, passion and deep understanding.