Finalist for the 2024 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction
Finalist for the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing
A #1 Sunday Times (UK) Bestseller • A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A Kirkus Reviews 'Best Book of the 21st Century (So Far)' • A New Yorker Best Book of 2024 • A Chicago Public Library Must-Read Book of 2024 • An Oprah Daily 'Most Thought-Provoking Book' of 2024.
In this innovative work, Olivia Laing invites readers on a journey inspired by her own experience restoring an eighteenth-century walled garden in Suffolk. As she delves into the beauty and intricacies of the garden, she simultaneously raises critical questions about access, privilege, and shared spaces. Laing’s passionate exploration intertwines literary references—from Milton’s Paradise Lost to Williams Morris's visions—illustrating how gardens serve not only as sites of personal solace but as active spaces for societal reflection and change.
Laing’s narrative journeys through various gardens, both real and imagined, uncovering histories that speak to patterns of exclusion and privilege, as well as to the radical communal dreams that gardens can embody. The garden becomes a metaphorical lens through which we can examine our shared future, especially in the face of climate change, revealing how gardens are places where new modes of living can flourish.
Essentially, 'The Garden Against Time' is not just about horticulture; it’s a vivid portrayal of how nature and human experience intersect within the garden walls, beckoning us to reimagine our relationship with the environment, each other, and the paradise we can strive to create.
