Carol Wall, a white woman living in a lily-white neighborhood in Middle America, was at a crossroads in her life. Her children were grown; she had successfully overcome illness; her beloved parents were getting older. One day she notices a dark-skinned African man tending her neighbor's yard. His name is Giles Owita. He bags groceries at the supermarket. He comes from Kenya. And he's very good at gardening. Before long Giles is transforming not only Carol's yard, but her life. Though they are seemingly quite different, a caring bond grows between them. But they both hold long-buried secrets that, when revealed, will cement their friendship forever.

    But he cashed in his literary success to finance a wild agrarian dream in his native Ohio. The ideas he planted at his utopian experimental farm, Malabar, would inspire America’s first generation of organic farmers and popularize the tenets of environmentalism years before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. A lanky Midwestern farm boy dressed up like a Left Bank bohemian, Bromfield stood out in literary Paris for his lavish hospitality and his green thumb. He built a magnificent garden outside the city where he entertained aristocrats, movie stars, flower breeders and writers of all stripes. Gertrude Stein enjoyed his food, Edith Wharton admired his roses, Ernest Hemingway boiled with jealousy over his critical acclaim. Millions savored his novels, which were turned into Broadway plays and Hollywood blockbusters, yet Bromfield’s greatest passion was the soil.In 1938, Bromfield returned to Ohio to transform 600 badly eroded acres into a thriving cooperative farm. From his rural seat, he launched a national crusade to improve America’s relationship with the land. He sounded one of the earliest alarms about pesticides like DDT and turned Malabar Farm into a mecca for agricultural pioneers and a country retreat for celebrities like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (who were married there in 1945). This sweeping biography unearths a lost icon of American culture, a fascinating, hilarious and unclassifiable character who — between writing and plowing — also dabbled in politics and high society. Through it all, Bromfield fought for an agriculture that would enrich the soil and protect the planet. And while his name has faded into obscurity, his mission seems more critical today than ever before.

    For the best part of his life Al Alvarez - poet, critic, novelist, rock-climber and poker player - has swum in them almost daily. An athlete in his youth, Alvarez, now in his eighties, chronicles what it is to grow old with humour and fierce honesty - from his relentlessly nagging ankle which makes daily life a struggle, to infuriating bureaucratic battles with the council to keep his disabled person's Blue Badge, the devastating effects of a stroke, and the salvation he finds in the three Ss - Swimming, Sex and Sleep.As Alvarez swims in the ponds he considers how it feels when you begin to miss that person you used to be - to miss yourself. Swimming is his own private form of protest against the onslaught of time; proof to others, and himself, that he's not yet beaten. By turns funny, poetic and indignant, "Pondlife" is a meditation on love, the importance of life's small pleasures and, above all, a lesson in not going gently in to that good night.

    Highway 1, hidden from Florida-bound vacationers by the hedge at the edge of the road and by hulks of old cars and stacks of blown-out tires. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood tells how a childhood spent in rural isolation and steeped in religious fundamentalism grew into a passion to save the almost vanished longleaf pine ecosystem that once covered the South. In language at once colloquial, elegiac, and informative, Ray redeems two Souths.

    His account of this time perfectly captures the city-dweller's naivety and wonder both at the workings of nature and the toughness of life on a farm. Collis's thoughtful curiosity leads him to explore a broad variety of subjects - from humorous sketches of the characters he works alongside to beautifully written pieces such as Contemplation Upon Ants, The Mystery of Clouds, Colloquy on the Rick and celebrations of the earthworm, the pea and potato.Includes While Following the Plough (1946) and Down to Earth (1947).Cover illustration by Angie Lewin.

    

    But when he stole a young kestrel from its nest, he was about to embark on a friendship that would teach him what it meant to love, and that would change him forever. In his rich, lyrical and emotionally exposing memoir, Chris brings to life his childhood in the 70s, from his bedroom bursting with fox skulls, birds' eggs and sweaty jam jars, to his feral adventures. But pervading his story is the search for freedom, meaning and acceptance in a world that didn’t understand him.Beautifully wrought, this coming-of-age memoir will be unlike any you’ve ever read.

    Baxter highlights hidden treasures along theSeine, treasured markets at Place d’Aligre, the favorite ambles of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Sylvia Beach, and more, in a series of intimate vignettes that evoke the best parts of Paris’s many charms. Baxter’s unforgettable chronicle reveals how walking is the best way to experience romance, history, and pleasures off the beaten path . . . not only of La Ville-Lumière but also, perhaps, of life itself.

    A mother speaks out against the fundamentalist leaders of her country. Meanwhile, her family’s watchful eyes never leave their beloved son and brother, whose rare heart condition means that he will never lead a normal life.When the Taliban gave an order for the execution of Hamed Amiri’s mother, the family knew they had to escape, starting what would be a long and dangerous journey, across Russia and through Europe, with the UK as their ultimate destination.Travelling as refugees for a year and a half, they suffered attacks from mafia and police; terrifying journeys in strangers’ cars; treks across demanding terrain; days spent hidden in lorries without food or drink; and being robbed at gunpoint of every penny they owned.The family’s need to reach the UK was intensified by their eldest son’s deteriorating condition, and the prospect of life-saving treatment it offered.The Boy with Two Hearts is not only a tale of a family in crisis, but a love letter to the NHS, which provided hope and reassurance as they sought asylum in the UK and fought to save their loved ones.

    It was like a romance novel, an old Broadway musical, and a John Wayne western rolled into one. Out for a quick drink with friends, I wasn't looking to meet anyone, let alone a tall, rugged cowboy who lived on a cattle ranch miles away from my cultured, corporate hometown. But before I knew it, I'd been struck with a lightning bolt . . . and I was completely powerless to stop it.Read along as I recount the rip-roaring details of my unlikely romance with a chaps-wearing cowboy, from the early days of our courtship (complete with cows, horses, prairie fire, and passion) all the way through the first year of our marriage, which would be filled with more challenge and strife—and manure—than I ever could have expected.This isn't just my love story; it's a universal tale of passion, romance, and all-encompassing love that sweeps us off our feet.It's the story of a cowboy.And Wranglers.And chaps.And the girl who fell in love with them.

    It recalls the monastic past of the house. It covers from the crunch of grass underfoot at midnight on a frosty New Year's Eve to the drip of trees in a melancholy March dawn.

    This third volume tells of Alan’s early political skirmishes as a trades union leader, where his negotiating skills and charismatic style soon came to the notice of Tony Blair and other senior members of the Labour Party.As a result, Alan was chosen to stand in the constituency of Hull West and Hessle, and entered Parliament as an MP after the landslide election victory for Labour in May 1997. But this is no self-aggrandizing memoir of Westminster politicking and skulduggery. Supporting the struggle of his constituents, the Hull trawlermen and their families, for justice comes more naturally to Alan than do the byzantine complexities of Parliamentary procedure. But of course he does succeed there, and rises through various ministerial positions to the office of Home Secretary in 2009.In The Long and Winding Road, Alan’s characteristic honesty and authenticity shine through every word. His book takes you into a world which is at once familiar and strange: this is politics as you’ve never seen it before…

    Approaching the land that was once home, memories of her childhood merge with the recent events that have set her on this journey.Amy was shaped by the cycle of the seasons, birth and death on the farm, and her father’s mental illness, which were as much a part of her childhood as the wild, carefree existence on Orkney. But as she grew up, she longed to leave this remote life. She moved to London and found herself in a hedonistic cycle. Unable to control her drinking, alcohol gradually took over. Now thirty, she finds herself washed up back home on Orkney, standing unstable at the cliff edge, trying to come to terms with what happened to her in London.Spending early mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, the days tracking Orkney’s wildlife—puffins nesting on sea stacks, arctic terns swooping close enough to feel their wings—and nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy slowly makes the journey toward recovery from addiction.The Outrun is a beautiful, inspiring book about living on the edge, about the pull between island and city, and about the ability of the sea, the land, the wind, and the moon to restore life and renew hope.A Guardian Best Nonfiction Book of 2016Sunday Times Top Ten BestsellerNew Statesman Book of the Year

    As seen on Netflix's The Crown.Anne Glenconner has been at the center of the royal circle from childhood, when she met and befriended the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, the Princess Margaret. Though the firstborn child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, who controlled one of the largest estates in England, as a daughter she was deemed "the greatest disappointment" and unable to inherit. Since then she has needed all her resilience to survive the vipers of court life with her sense of humor intact. A unique witness to landmark moments in royal history, Maid of Honor at Queen Elizabeth's coronation, and a lady in waiting to Princess Margaret until her death in 2002, Anne's life has encompassed extraordinary drama and tragedy. In Lady in Waiting, she will share many intimate royal stories from her time as Princess Margaret's closest confidante as well as her own battle for survival: her broken-off first engagement on the basis of her "mad blood"; her 54-year marriage to the volatile, unfaithful Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, who left his fortune to a former servant; the death in adulthood of two of her sons; a third son she nursed back from a six-month coma following a horrific motorcycle accident. Through it all, Anne has carried on, traveling the world with the royal family, including visiting the White House, and developing the Caribbean island of Mustique as a safe harbor for the rich and famous-hosting Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Raquel Welch, and many other politicians, aristocrats, and celebrities.

    Melissa Coleman doesn’t just tell the story of her family’s brave experiment and private tragedy; she brings to life an important and underappreciated chapter of our recent history.” —Tom Perrotta In a work of power and beauty reminiscent of Tobias Wolff, Jeannette Walls, and Dave Eggers, Melissa Coleman delivers a luminous, evocative childhood memoir exploring the hope and struggle behind her family's search for a sustainable lifestyle. With echoes of The Liars’ Club and Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Coleman’s searing chronicle tells the true story of her upbringing on communes and sustainable farms along the rugged Maine coastline in the 1970’s, embedded within a moving, personal quest for truth that her experiences produced.