The Gardener's Year

By Karel Čapek

Book Overview

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. This edition features lively black and white illustrations by Czech artist Josef Capek and is translated by M. and R. Weatherall.

The Gardener's Year is a charming and light-hearted insight into the life of an amateur gardener. Structured loosely around what to plant, grow or cultivate each month, Karel Capek takes us on a rollicking journey through a year in his own small garden.

From making puddles with an untamable hose to sowing luxuriant weeds instead of grass, Capek reveals how a gardener grows into his surroundings 'spurred on by each new failure'. Subverting the tradition of a 'how to' gardening book, he teaches his readers about the magic of seeds, the perils of planting vegetables and the thrilling surprises of a rock garden. As the year progresses and frail buds turn from flowering stems to drooping bulbs and falling leaves, Capek's small garden buzzes with life, wisdom and humour.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1529096243
• ISBN13: 9781529096248
• Release Date: April 2023
• Publisher: MacMillan Collector's Library
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 3.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 3.7" x 5.6"
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

Gardener's Gentle Humor

I bought this book for a friend, as a gift upon her achieving Master Gardener certification. I expected something a bit different, a bit more practical, perhaps, but after leafing through the pages, I read the entire book before I gave it to her. Written by the man known to most of us as a European author of the early 20th century on more weighty subjects, this man's witty description of himself as the sometimes manic master of his small domestic garden both amuses and somehow comforts those of us who share his enthusiasm. I laughed long and loudly at Capek's description of what ensued from his planting of the seeds from just one packet, at the many dozens of little plants in little pots, all of which became bigger and bigger, and had to be taken outdoors, finally, to find places in a tiny garden patch. This is a short book, with short chapters, just right for picking up in odd moments during the winter months when we are only dreaming about the coming of gardening season once again.

Lowdown on Gardeners

This is the best book about gardeners I know of. With grace and humor, this book delightfully explores the glories and foibles of serious amateur gardeners. Any garden nut who reads this book without laughing and almost crying over this inciteful outing of the gardener's soul is a callous person indeed.

The best-ever essays on the GARDENER and Garden!

I'll make this short. These essays are simply the best ever about the act of gardening and the gardeners themselves. Anyone who has ever tended a garden for any length of time will immediately relate to the situations and the people in these writings. They are humorous as well as accurate. You'll laugh at yourself and your friends through these wonderfull essays.