US Review Free-Lance Star: The Brother Gardeners
"'The Brother Gardeners' by Andrea Wulf is a beguiling tale ... this tale of many surprises"
UPCOMING EVENTS
- Click here for upcoming events in Britain and the US
BOOKS
- The Brother Gardeners. Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession
UK paperback February 2009
The Brother Gardeners tells the story of the six men who created the craze for botany and gardening which overtook the public imagination in late 18th Britain. More info.
Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction
US edition 30 March 2009
This Other Eden Seven Great Gardens and Three Hundred Years of English History
The history of England told through the stories of the making of seven gardens.
US Review Hartford Courant: The Brother Gardeners
Friendship Cultivates an Obsession
Gardens have long been one of the great prides of the British. The mere words "English garden" evoke stately mansions surrounded by Scissorhandian shrubs and masses of flowering perennials.
So it's a bit ironic to discover that many of the seeds of those gardens
trace their roots to America. As German design historian Andrea Wulf tells it
in her engrossing new book "The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the
Birth of an Obsession" (Knopf, $35), English gardens as we know them would
not have been possible without the friendship of two men: the American farmer, John Bartram and the London cloth merchant, Peter Collinson.
It was Bartram who, in 1733, shipped seeds and plant specimens to his English chum. The American seeds and plants thrived in the English soil and climate, and a national obsession was born.
Origins and ironies aside, we are all the richer for it, and for Wulf's book, too.
The Brother Gardeners is 7th on Indie Gardening & Nature Bestseller List in the US
Okay ... it's not the New York Times bestseller list. But the American Booksellers Association released The Indie Gardening & Nature Bestseller List in on 3 June 2009 for the eight-week period ending 2 June (based on sales in independent bookstores in the United States).
And The Brother Gardeners made it to number 7.
Interview Diane Rehm Show: The Brother Gardeners
On 30 April 2009 I was for an hour on the Diane Rehm Show on WAMU 88.5 FM. And on 3 July they repeated it together with an interview of the fabulous Annette Gordon-Reed on her "Hemingses of Monticello" book.
Listen here in Real Audio
| Launch in external player |
Listen here in Windows Media
Or download the Podcast here.
More from the blogs
Here are a couple more blogs that recommend and review The Brother Gardeners.
Talk at the Friends of Croydon Libraries, The Brother Gardeners, 17 February 2010, 3pm
I will be giving a talk at the Friends of Croydon Libraries, London at 3pm.
Talk at Daughters of the Cincinnati, The Brother Gardeners, 28 April 2010, New York, USA
Time and location will be updated nearer to the time
Talk at the British Library, The Brother Gardeners, 2 February 2010
I will be giving a talk to the Patrons of the British Library on 2 February - more details will be added closer to the time.
Article Kew Magazine, The Flowering of a Glorious Obsession, summer 2009
Packed with
exciting, exotic plants, Kew has been a magnet for garden lovers for 250years.
Andrea Wulf looks back to the 18th century to find the man at the heart
of Kew’s success and Britain’s passion for gardening.
The Brother Gardener reviewed on blogs
Here are a few recent blogs which kindly reviewed The Brother Gardeners
www.talesfromclarkstreet.bogspot.com
www.writersinterviews.blogspot.com
www.robertwilliamsofbrooklyn.blogspot.com
ANDREA WULF
- I trained as a design historian
at the Royal College of Art in London and am now a full-time writer.I’m the author of two books and have written for the Sunday Times, Financial Times, The Garden and the Architects’ Journal. I regularly write reviews for The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and the Mail on Sunday. I also work as a creative writer for a new botanic garden in Singapore (Gardens by the Bay / Land Design Studio).
contact me: aw (at) andreawulf.com
