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Book List

Old Study
2022-2023

  • The Brothers Gardeners – A Generation of Gentleman Naturalist and the Birth of an Obsession by Andrea Wulf

  • The Island of the Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

  • Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp

  • The Planter of Modern Life, Louis Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution by Stephen Heyman

 

2021-2022

  • Barkskins by Annie Proulx

  • Find the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

  • The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly

  • The Artist and the Orchard: A Memoir by Linda Hoffman

  • A Memory of Violets: A Novel of London’s Flower Sellers by Hazel Gaynor

  • How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Curious {But True} Stories of Common Vegetables by Rebecca Rupp

  • Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted by Justin Martin

 
2020

  • Dancing With Bees:  A Journey Back to Nature by Brigit Strawbridge Howard

  • An Island Garden by Celia Thaxter

  • Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants by Douglas Tallamy

  • The Earth in Her Hands by Jennifer Jewell

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2019

  • American Eden – David Hosaek – Botany and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson

  • The Overstory by Richard Powers

  • A Perfect Red by Amy Butler Greenfield

  • The Indigo Girl, A Novel by Natasha Boyd

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2018 

  • Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto by Leslie Buck. A memoir. 

  • All The Presidents’ Gardens by Marta McDowell

  • The History Of Bees by Maja Lunde

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2017 

  • 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann

  • Lab Girl by Hope Jahrenby

  • The Hidden Life of Trees:  What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleban

  • Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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2016 -2017 

  • 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann

  • Lab Girl by Hope Jahrenby

  • The Hidden Life of Trees:  What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleban

  • Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

  • ​The Plant Hunters: Two Hundred Years of Adventure and Discovery Around the World by Toby Musgrave and Chris Gardner

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2014-2015

  • The Care & Handling of Roses with Thorns: A Novel by Margaret Dilloway

  • The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love by Kristen Kimball

  • The Signature of All Things: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert

  • Apples of Uncommon Character: Heirlooms, Modern Classics, and Little-Known Wonders by Rowan Jacobsen

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Summer Reading

  • Garden Society Mysteries by Alyse Carlson

  • The Azalea Assault, Keeping Mum, and The Begonia Bribe  from Neal Sanders: The Garden Club Gang, A Murder in the Garden Club, and A Murder at the Flower Show 

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2013-2014

  • The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe by Glynis Ridley

  • The Tulip by Anna Pavord

  • Sissinghurst, An Unfinished History: The Quest to Restore a Working Farm at Vita Sackville-West’s Legendary Garden by Adam Nicolson

  • Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life: The Plants and Places that Inspired the Classic Children’s Tales by Marta McDowell

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2012-2013

  • Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmstead by Justin Martin

  • The Land of Blue Poppy by Francis Ward

  • The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

  • Women and Their Gardens: A History from the Elizabethan Era to Today by Catherine Horwood

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2011-2012
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2010-2011

  • The Wild Vine: A Forgotten Grape and the Untold Story of American Wine by Todd Kilman

  • Ceremonial Time: Fifteen Thousand Years on One Square Mile by John Hanson Mitchell

  • The Trees in My Forest by Bernd Heinrich

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2009-2010
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2008-2009

  • The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston

  • Seedfolks by Paul Feischman

  • The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Garden of Ethnic America by Patricia Klindienst

  • In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan

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2005-2006

  • Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden by Diane Ackerman

  • Faith in a Seed: The Dispersion of Seeds and Other late Natural History Writings by Henry David Thoreau

  • Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell

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2004-2005

  • Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

  • The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms by Amy Stewart

  • An Island Garden by Celia Thaxter

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2003-2004

  • The Writer in the Garden edited by Jane Garmey

  • A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

  • Noah’s Garden by Sara Stein

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2002-2003

  • The Wildest Place on Earth: Italian Gardens and the Invention of Wilderness by John Hanson Mitchell

  • Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden by Eleanor Perenyi

  • The Gardener’s Year by Karel Capek

  • The Essential Earthman by Henry Mitchell

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2001-2002

  • Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katherine S. White

  • The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan

  • A Year at North Hill: Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden by Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd

  • The Landscaping Revolution: Garden with Mother Nature, Not Against Her by Andy Wasowski and Sally Wasowski

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2000-2001

  • The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean

  • Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

  • Second Nature by Michael Pollan

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1999-2000

  • Men and Gardens by Nan Fairbrother

  • The 3,000-Mile Garden by Leslie Lend

  • Stalking the Wild Amaranth by Janet Marinelli

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