Book Recommendations

Keep in Touch

Join our mailing list to be kept informed of upcoming events.

Enjoy the latest book recommendations as chosen by our staff.

Contact us to check stock availability about these or any other books you are interested in. We can order most books from our suppliers and they'll be ready to be picked up next day.

Books for gardeners
		Gardening Women Catherine Horwood Cover: Hardback Price: £17.99 Women have always gardened. Primarily for food and medicine - an accepted skill of the good home maker. Only in more recent history have their names crept into the lists of the great designers. These are some of their stories from 1600 to the present day.

		Weeds and Wild Flowers Alice Oswald and Jessica Greenman Cover: Hardback Price: £14.99 Alice Oswald says that this is not an illustrated book - it is a book of her poems and a book of Jessica Greenman’s etching ‘shuffled together’. It makes a beautiful pack.

		The Curious Gardener Anna Pavord Cover: Hardback Price: £20 A month by month handbook for the garden. Both practical and inspirational for your own garden, but also has accounts of Pavord’s meanderings abroad as diverse as Costa Rica Railway and Spring in New York. Beautifully illustrated with wood engravings by Howard Phipps.

		Roots of Civlisations John Newton Cover: Hardback Subtitled Plants that changed the world, this handsome tome looks at the fascinating history of some of our most everyday plants. From Rosemary being the key ingredient of the miracle cure - Queen of Hungary’s Water and certainly the first modern perfume, to the mysterious mandrake root mythologised as growing from the fallen semen of hanged men - as quoted by Beckett in Waiting for Godot. The Botanical illustrations are stunning.

For foodies
		The Oxford Companion to Food Alan Davidson Cover: Hardback Price: £40.00 ‘an awe-inspiring work of love and dedication …..From haute to humble, spice to ice, Asian to Inuit, cannibalism to veganism, it is all here, gathered eloquently, wittily, deliciously and irresistibly between two covers’ Thank you Sophie Grigson.

		Tender Volume II Nigel Slater Cover: Hardback Price: £30.00 This is everything you need to know about cooking with fruit - and not just puddings and pies. Delicious ideas such as lamb with quinces or roast leg of pork with spiced rhubarb make mouth watering reading and, as with all Nigel Slater’s recipes, are not too difficult to achieve.

		Jelly with Bompas and Parr Cover: Hardback Price: £14.99 Shimmering and glistening - have you ever seen anything so enticing as Chartreuse and Peach Jelly. Just scour the charity shops for old glass jelly moulds and you have the perfect present for the foodies.

		Recipe for Murder Estrelle Payany Cover: Hardback Price: £14.95 Linking classic fiction’s villains and victuals, from East of Eden we have Cathy Ames' Dead Bean Salad and from American Psycho there is Roast Beef with Truffled Mashed Potatoes Each recipe is prefaced by the relevant passage from the novel and a quirky illustration by Jean-Francios Martin.

And for music lovers
		Electric Eden Rob Young Cover: Paperback Price: £17.99 The recent resurgence in popular music clearly influenced by folk as well as the increasing number of music festivals seems to demand a study of the history of music-making in Britain which this book certainly satisfies.

		The Boombox Projext Lyle Owerko with foreword by Spike Lee Cover: Hardback Price: £15.99 Compared to todays tiny mp3 players, when recorded music first hit the streets it was barely portable and bigger was definitely better. Photos and memories of an iconic machine.

		Bob Dylan in America Sean Wilentz Cover: Hardback Price: £20.00 As Professor of the Revolutionary Era at Princeton and historian-in-residence on Bob Dylan’s official website, Sean Wilentz is in a unique position to offer a fresh perspective on Dylan’s place in the American cultural landscape.

		Reich’s Orchestra Misha Aster Cover: Hardback Price: £20.00 History of the controversial relationship between the Berlin Philharmonic and the Nazi party.

For travellers
		Andes Michael Jacobs Cover: Hardback Price: £25.00 In this vast and wonderful book we join the author on his journey the entire length of the Andes mountain range revealing the secrets of a region steeped in history, science, myth and danger.

		Burning Leg ed. Duncan Minshull with foreward by Will Self Cover: Hardback Price: £12.99 Walking scenes from classic fiction including the very funny 'Nearly to the Top?' - Mark Twain and friend quarrelling and hiking in the Alps.

		Asia Overland Bijan Omrani Cover: Paperback Price: £19.95 Sumptuously illustrated history of the art of travel in Asia. From the first boneshaking rides on the Trans Siberian Express to the beginnings of the Silk Road. Packed with fascinating detail.

		Letters from London and Europe Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Cover: Hardback Price: £14.99 This is the first ever translation into English ‘Provides a fascinating glimpse into the life of the author of The Leopard and vivid descriptions of Europe and Great Britain in the 1920’s.

		Atlas of Remote Islands Judith Schalansky Cover: Hardback Price: £25.00 It says on the cover ‘Fifty Islands I have not visited and never will’ and that’s probably true for most of us but this beautiful book allows you to travel to Lonely, Possession and Christmas Islands amongst others from the comfort of your own home.

Children
		Iron Man Ted Hughes illustrated by Laura Carlin Cover: Hardback Price: £15.00 A beautifully illustrated edition of this thought-provoking tale that has delighted both children and adults for over forty years.

		A Child's Christmas in Wales Dylan Thomas illustrated by Edward Ardizzone Cover: Paperback Price: £4.99 Another classic but well worth revisiting and introducing to a new generation. Ardizzone's illustrations compliment the story perfectly, ideal Christmas reading.