In 2020, the editors decided to compile a short series of iconic images to mark Country Living magazine's 35th birthday and the result is this beautiful book celebrating a magazine that has always championed all things country and the ever-changing seasons across the whole of the British Isle. Here you will find candid portraits of farmers, fishermen, craftspeople and artisans going about their daily work, majestic land and seascapes and nature in all its glory from newborn lambs in the field to rescued ponies grazing in an idyllic woodland. March begins tentatively with wild primroses and bluebells peeping through the woodland floor tempting hungry bees from their hibernation. Honeysuckle and dogroses overrun hedgerows in summer. Starlings dive and twist over nesting sights in autumn and evergreens reign supreme during the winter months, strong branches ready for the first falls of snow. Here are beautiful speckled eggs in close up, cherry blossom overhanging clean laundry, puffins, horned sheep jumping across the river, big white feathered honking geese during egg season, Dunnottar Castle, a medieval fortress on a rocky headland, a collector of rare daffodils and narcissus, a quail in a farmer's hand, an artist with her canvas, Durdle Door, a globe being handcrafted, oyster mushrooms grown on recycled coffee grounds in Sussex, a sow in the snow and a farmer and his sheepdog Meg harvesting festive mistletoe among the stunning full page stunning colour photographs included in this collection from the brilliant visual story tellers of the magazine. With extended captions and quotes in large print, a beautifully designed large hardback, 237pp.

Trees are the Earth's lungs, climate regulators, and habitat protectors. Ever since our prehistoric ancestors emerged from the forest of a drying Africa, trees have given us shelter, medicine, shade, food and fuel in abundance. Max Adams in his eclectic and beautifully written sequence of reflections investigates stories and tree profiles, both the extraordinary biology of trees and humanity's relationship with wood and forests across the centuries. He reveals why birch bark makes the best fire-lighter, why the fruits of the rowan must pass through a bird's gut before its seeds can germinate, and how the wood of the venerable yew tree ensured that the English prevailed at Agincourt. In his investigation of the Scots pine he looks at a palette of forests, life in the woods, St Columbus's Coppice, the rarest tree and Woodwards and Pallisters. He considers the axe, the adze and wedge, the first carpenters and Stonehenge decoded, he looks at the engineers, hormones, machines, hydraulics and bodgers. He looks at the charcoal age and colliers, how to spot an ancient wood, forest gardens and the seasons. Liberally sprinkled with woody quotations, pen and ink and woodcut images from John Evelyn's classic Sylva of 1664. 256pp, glossary. 19cm square.

The renowned equestrian photographer has a unique way of capturing the mystical charisma and elegance of the Arabian breed in her photos whether in groups cantering, at rest, decorated, a tiny foal, family groups, standing proud, in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza or in the Kalahari ridden by bowler-hatted gents, with cowboys, courting, dancing, at play in fields or stables. A white stallion rears up to the command of his Arab master in front of Petra in Jordan on a hot sunny day. The history of the Arabian (or Arab) horse dates from before the time of King Solomon to the present day, a story that continues with the role that the Arab horse has played in Islamic conquest and Arab history, highlighting the importance that Islam has always accorded 'this most noble of animals'. Woven into this tapestry is the interplay between the Christian and Muslim worlds and colourful adventurers, both Arab and Western. With its unrivalled range of action photographs in full page colour, here is the definitive book of the noblest breed in all the equine world. These are intelligent, fleet-footed, noble, curious, sensitive creatures which work hard and enjoy close relationships with humans. These horses are also of special importance to Gabrielle Boiselle, because it was a magical encounter with an Arabian stallion that convinced her to pursue her passion for equestrian photography across the globe. Glorious quality colour, huge 33 x 26.8cm 320 pages.
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Grown in the Middle East 2,000 years ago for its pleasing scent and medicinal properties, the rose has become one of the most adored flowers across cultures, no longer selected by nature, but by humans. The rose is well versed at enchanting human hearts, from Shakespeare's sonnets to Bulgaria's Rose Valley, to the thriving rose trade in Africa and the Far East, via museums, high fashion, Victorian England and Belle Epoque France. Bursting with meaning, over the centuries it has come to represent love and sensuality, deceit, death and the mystical unknown and even today is ever present at life's seminal moments. Here we meet an astonishing array of species and hybrids of remarkably different provenance in a story of a hardy, thorny flower and how by beauty and charm it came to seduce the world. Here are pagan, monotheistic roses, mystical, poetic and painted roses and rose gardens and gardening and the business today. Who said flower power was dead? 294pp, colour photos.

Sub-titled 'How Humans Have Loved, Hated and Misunderstood Other Species', why do we treat our dogs as people but prefer pigs as bacon? The book is a compelling search inside our moral selves and through masterful introspection Girling delves into our relationships, fascinations and follies with animals, tracking the origins of attitudes and unpacking contradictions, at the same time asking whether our interactions with other species holds the key to our own survival. 'In an age of extinction, this is essential reading.' Without animals there would be no us. We are fellow travellers on the same evolutionary journey. By charting the love-hate story of people and animals, from their first acquaintance in deep prehistory to the present and beyond, Girling in his dazzling prose tells the story of the cumulative influence of theologians, writers, artists, warriors, philosophers, farmers, activists and scientists across the centuries, now locking us into debates on farming, extinction, animal rights, pets, experiments and religion. Brimming with wisdom and insight, 408pp, illus.

From 1936 to 1940, the newly-wed George Orwell lived in a small cottage in Hertfordshire, writing and tending his garden. When Rebecca Solnit visited the cottage, she discovered the descendants of the roses that he had planted many decades before. These survivors, as well as the diaries he kept of his planting and growing, provide a springboard for a fresh look at Orwell's motivations and drives, and the optimism that countered his dystopian vision. It opens up a profound meditation on our relationship to plants, trees and the natural world. Tracking his impact on political thought over the last century, Solnit journeys to England and Russia, Mexico and Columbia, exploring the political and historical events that shaped Orwell's life and her own. She follows his journey from the coalmines of England to taking up arms in the Spanish Civil War, from his prescient critique of Stalin to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism. She makes fascinating forays into colonial legacies in the flower garden, discovers photographer Tina Modotti's roses, reveals Stalin's obsession with growing lemons in impossibly cold conditions, and exposes the brutal rose industry in Columbia. A book of reflection, pleasure, beauty and joy as acts of resistance. 308pp, illus.

When our ancestors came down from the trees, they brought the trees with them and remade the world. How did the descendants of small arboreal primates manage to stand on our own two feet, become top predators, and take over the world? Roland Ennos shows that the key to humanity's success has been our relationship with wood. He takes us on a sweeping ten-million-year journey from great apes who built their nests among the trees, to early humans who depended on wood for fire, shelter, tools and weapons, from the structural design of wheels and woodwinds to the invention of paper and the printing press. He draws together evidence as far-ranging as primatology, anthropology, archaeology, history, architecture, engineering and carpentry, and charts for the first time how our ability to exploit wood's unique properties has shaped our bodies, minds, societies and lives. Chapters include Losing Our Hair, Tooling Up, Clearing the Forest, Melting and Smelting, Carving Our Communities, Supplying Life's Luxuries, Placing Firewood and Charcoal, Wood in the Nineteenth Century and In the Modern World and finally assessing our impact and mending our strange relationship and rediscovering traditional ways of growing, using and understanding trees that can help combat climate change and bring our lives into better balance with nature. 318pp in large softback, 23 illus.

Aroma is the primary language of trees. They talk with molecules, conspiring with one another, beckoning fungi, scolding insects and whispering to microbes. An olfactory journey which reboots our aromatic memory and reminds us of how our lives are intertwined with the wonder of trees. Each chapter summons a new aroma - leaf litter and wood smoke, pine resin and tannin, quinine and bay leaf - with a witty and erudite companion leading us through the woods and the world. The 13 essays explore the evocative scent of trees, from the smell of a book just printed as you open its first pages to the calming scent of Linden blossom and to the ingredients of a particularly good gin and tonic. The spikey, herbal odour of European juniper berries; a tang of lime juice from a tree descended from wild progenitors in the foothills of the Himalayas; bitter quinine from the bark of the South American cinchona tree, take a sip and feel the aroma and taste of three continents. Slow down, breathe in and experience a smell and allow your sensory awareness to activate and blossom. Sit under the boughs of a ponderosa pine. Roll a laurel leaf between your fingers or rest your hands upon the bark of your favourite tree. Inhale and share the story. 192pp, satin pagemarker.

'The Magic of Exploring the Outdoors After Dark' offers grown-ups, children and anyone in between an invitation to a whole new dimension of life, exploring and nature spotting even when the sun goes down. There are challenges to try, ideas and guidance and games to play in the dusk and dark as we explore a time of new creatures, celestial bodies, new sights, sounds and smells. Chris Salisbury brings a nocturnal dimension to life with lore about badgers, bats and minibeasts as well as tales of the constellations and planets to share around the campfire. He teaches us to use our hawk eyes, use sense meditation, behave like a bloodhound, take a barefoot walk, tree ID, print ID, and accounting sounds. As we get attuned try deer stalking, learn about hunters, predators and prey, small mammals, owls and voles, owl calling, bats and moths, foxes, and the nocturnal soundscape. Learn to map the constellations and join other night watchers, take a nighttime paddle or a seashore experience for a cosmic dance. And it is all free! 208pp in well illustrated paperback.

'From whom did you steal that beauty? The rose laughs softly out of shame, but how should she tell?' - Rumi. Acclaimed horticultural historian Jennifer Potter shows that this most fragrant flower, the rose, has potency in societies around the world. She begins her story in the Greek and Roman empires and travels across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas to unravel its evolution from a simple briar of the northern hemisphere to the height of cultivated perfection found in rose gardens today. She lays bare the flower's long association with sexuality and secret societies, questioning the Crusaders' role in bringing roses back from the Holy Land, or hunting for its elusive blooms in the gardens of the Empress Josephine at Malmaison. An exquisitely beautiful heavyweight tome printed on quality paper and with hundreds of full page colour plates not only of roses but of archive paintings and historical artifacts and illuminated manuscripts, the book challenges many cherished beliefs about the rose and this thick tome looks to establish itself as the definitive history of the Queen of Flowers. Celebrated as a sacred symbol and as a token of womanhood, the rose unites Venus with the Virgin Mary, the blood of Christ with the sweat of Muhammad, the sacred and the profane, life and death, the white rose of chastity and the red rose of consummation. Not forgetting the delicate petals in different hues in the exquisite perfumes, we learn about roses which came to Europe from Turkey and Bulgaria and the Balkan mountains, rosemania and Redouté's exquisite portraits of their best creations which further inflamed passions. We have a 21st century view of cultivated roses be they old garden roses from Alba to tea and climbing tea, or modern roses like Floribunda to Polyantha. Chinese Whispers, American Beauties, the Housewife's Friend and its uses, here is trade and travel and sex and sorcery. 521 magnificent pages with approximately 100 colour illus. 16.5 x 24.1cm.
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