Mar 23, 2022 | written by: Federica Massaro
An encounter between literature and nature. The section all about books related to the environment and sustainability. Flowers and plants, labours of love, timeless symbols of kindness and civilisation. With spring at our doorstep, we’re recommending three titles, from novels to unique guides, to help you get to know the world of nature!
Wild Flowers - Dietmar Aichele
Dietmar Aichele is the ideal starting point for a journey through nature. The German author dedicated his whole life to studying the natural world, becoming a renowned botanist. He lived through the 20th century and promoted the cultural revolution typical of the economic boom years. The idea behind the book is a praiseworthy one: to open up the world of flowers by creating a guide accessible to everyone, including laypeople. In Wild Flowers, the surprising novelty is the way the book is organised by colour, allowing you to search quickly and immediately. Each section contains further classifications, with tables describing different types of countryside, meadows, ponds and flower shapes.
Reading it is almost a game, making it the perfect book to carry in your backpack on a walk.
Make space between the pages
No quote this time, so let’s go between the pages with the wonderful photos of Gaetano Lamberti, known on Instagram as @tannus, who perfectly evokes the book's beauty.
The Gardener’s Year - Karel Čapek
Karel Čapek was one of the most famous Czech writers of the 20th century. We remember him as a journalist and playwright, but he was also a great lover of the world of plants. The Gardener’s Year can be defined as a public diary on the life of a garden and those who care for it – a quirky new version of their personal memories. The striking feature of this very short book is the stinging irony, which never succumbs to romanticism. Caring for plants requires effort and mistakes, questions to be answered and constant attention, but it also brings unexpected joy and amusement.
For Čapek, looking after greenery teaches us life skills. Thanks to plants, we learn – or at least hone – the art of patience, listening to what surrounds us.
Make space between the pages
Sometimes it seems to smell of decomposition, the encumbrances of the dried remnants of the past; but if we could look at how fat, white shoots make their way in that old cultivation ground we call today; how many seeds sprout secretly, how many old plants are gathered and concentrated in a living bud, which will one day explode into flourishing life; if we could look at the secret tinglings of the future between us, we would evidently tell ourselves what great nonsense our melancholy and distrust are; and that the best thing of all is to be a living person; or a person who grows.
The Passionate Gardener - Rudolf Borchardt
Reaching Rudolf Borchardt takes us on a trip back through time. The writer of Jewish origin lived between the 19th and 20th centuries and was a skilled translator and well-known poet, an attentive observer of a world devastated by the pain of war, with a sensibility for nature. The Passionate Gardener is the condensation of his thoughts, a work of extraordinary value that defies definition. The writer patiently created a unique work that recounts the evolution of gardens in a lengthy exploration spanning centuries. Fascinating explanations and detailed descriptions of plants and flowers are enriched here and there by phrases that inspire reflection. A gentle work which seems to tell us that there is nothing truer and more beautiful than the fragile seed from which life is born.
Make space between the pages
The flower belongs to infinity, and the garden does not want to lose itself in infinity, but rather to console itself with confines.
Happy reading!
Previous episodes
. Roots of Words - Women and nature
. Roots of Words – For Valentine’s Day
. Roots of words – Into the woods
. Roots of Words – The mountains are calling
