100 books like The Land Where Lemons Grow

This is a very slim volume by the Czech novelist, playwright, and essayist who gave us the word “robot” in a play in 1921. In this book, Capek takes readers through a year, month by month, in his backyard garden in Prague. The writing is full of humor, the tone conversational, with observations that resonate with all gardeners–from the fickleness of the weather to the pleasures of reading plant catalogues in the winter. But the true subject of Capek’s musing is the complexity of human nature. For the writer, the garden is a metaphor for what makes us human. It is ultimately a very hopeful book, and Capek ends it with these words: “The right, the best is in front of us. Each successive year will add growth and beauty. Thank God that again we shall be one year farther on!”  

This book is an absolute classic when it comes to plants, and I often turn back to it. Pollan mixes history, science, and cultural reflection to tell fuller stories about plants we have long histories with, like apples, all the while illuminating what makes those plants important to us—and how they’ve also transformed our ways of living.

It’s a book rich with anecdotes that are completely unforgettable.

If you like wine, you need to read this book. Winemaking goes back at least 8,000 years, but only in recent times has so much of its production been determined by the application of science, and the taste of the wines we drink dictated by wine critics, appellation tasting committees, and global markets. This book celebrates the innovators who are trying to make wines that are more natural, fuller in character, and more exciting. Their approach also has potential benefits for human health and our environment, and reading this book has sent me off on wonderful journeys through the south of France trying to find such oddities as orange wine (no, orange wine is not made from oranges!)

First published in 1820, this book reminds us that nefarious practices have always been used by food producers, and that these practices are generally intended to boost profits with little concern for human health. ‘There is death in the pot!’ the author tells us in his preface, and he goes on to catalogue how products such as beer and bread, cheese and cognac, olive oil and vinegar were all being adulterated or counterfeited. More unusually, he goes on to explain case by case how the layperson can unmask the fraudsters with a little knowledge of home chemistry. Unfortunately for his readers past and present, technological developments since 1820 have allowed unscrupulous purveyors of human sustenance to develop countless new ways of disguising poor-quality or badly-deteriorated food.

As an Englishman living in France, this short story resonates with me on so many levels in a topsy-turvy sort of way. Babette is a foreigner (French) living in a foreign land (Norway), and the key part of this foreignness is the contrast between the piety of the two spinsters who employ Babette as their cook, and her supposedly hedonistic French approach to food and life, including a murky past in which she may have been an arsonist during the Commune of Paris. In truth, Babette is an artist who expresses herself through her cooking, and when she wins the lottery, she spends all the money on a single dinner for her hosts instead of buying a ticket home to France.

This book is only available in French, but I include it because it provides such an impressive overview of a period when French cooking began to establish itself as Europe’s pre-eminent cuisine. I referred to it frequently during my own research into French gastronomy. In a few short pages we learn about the emergence of the first celebrity chefs and food critics, the evolution of how food was served in polite society in France and other parts of Europe, and the way in which new ingredients such as maize and potatoes became staples of the peasant diet. There is also a section on Napoleon’s own culinary preferences, which reveals more about the tastes of the common soldier than the general.

This is a brilliant book. Mike Shanahan has done a wonderful job, weaving his meticulous research (he has a doctorate in rainforest ecology) into a highly engaging description of the importance of fig trees around the world, both in terms of their vital ecological functions and their importance to people.

It’s full of fascinating information: from the role figs have played in world religions and human cultures, to the raw materials they supply and the fact that they support more of the world’s animal and bird species than any other trees. 

Illustrated with beautiful black & white drawings, it explains why fig trees are so important to life on earth and how, with their extraordinary capacity to restore degraded lands, they can help create a better future for us all.

This little book is a thing of beauty and I just find it spell-binding. Talented artist and printmaker Pia Östlund describes how she makes a curious discovery: a set of prints in the library of Chelsea Physic Garden in London. This leads her to rediscover the lost technique of nature-printing, while her co-author Simon Prett explores the history of this little-known art. Little snippets about fern hunting and facsimiles of fern fronds and seaweeds make this irresistible – the kind of book I’d dip into on a lazy Saturday morning over coffee, then struggle to dip back out of!  

I grew up in a house choked with books – falling out of the shelves and piling onto the floor. I developed a curious habit as a child: I would sniff the pages of every book I picked up. Some smell old, like vanilla and time, I discovered; others smell fresh, like rain after a drought. Well, Glasshouse Greenhouse smells so good it’s worth buying for its perfume alone! Seriously though, this is a visual treat, packed full of emerald-green plantscapes on every page. The authors start their journey around the world’s glasshouses just metres from where I sit typing these words at my place of work, Oxford Botanic Garden. To me, this makes it particularly special. 

There is something innately calming about trees, isn’t there? Even just thinking about them. Today I often read about something called Forest Bathing. I’m told it refers to being calm and quiet amongst the trees – absorbing something from them in a way that nourishes the soul. Well, that’s what this book does for me. Fiona allows us to pause and admire the common trees around us; she leads us among seventeen common species including ash, apple, pine, oak, cypress, and willow, pointing out along the way how they are entwined with human existence.