Search results for ""Author Jonathan Buckley""

A woman named Naomi arrives at her sister's house, intending, it seems, to say goodbye. She is abandoning her city life for a remote Scottish retreat, which she will share with a man called Bernát, whom she considers some kind of visionary. In a sequence of stories filtered through multiple re-tellings, she illuminates the character of this elusive individual. One story seems of special significance: about Afonso, an Amazon boatman, who could be the last speaker of his mother tongue, a language of apparently unique simplicity and precision. Bernat and Naomi are not, however, the only storytellers here. Naomi's sister, Kate, is herself working on a novel that begins as a ghost story, but ends up as something rather different: The river is the river.

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Dominic Pattison's life is one of level contentment: his marriage has proved happy and durable; his business, too, is successful.And then Sam Williams, a builder and ex-squaddie, enters his life. Sam claims to be his son. Yet is Sam who he says he is? After almost thirty years, Dominic can remember little of the affair with Sam's mother. His instinct is to recoil from this aggressive and volatile stranger, who could, with just a few words, take his life apart. But Sam refuses to be dismissed. With its deft switches of sympathy between menaced 'father' and rebuffed 'son' and its exploration of the intricacies of memory, Contact will resonate long with its readers.

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The lapping of the sea was a lesson in mortality...' Live,' he heard, with each whisper of the water. 'Live; live; live.' Through Lucas Judd, the dead make contact with the living, or so he believes, or professes to believe. He is a man of such penetrating insight and empathy that many have faith in his gift. They confide in him, and find consolation. Even Joshua, his sceptical young neighbour, seems drawn by his compassionate sophistry. But when Erin, a much younger woman, shadowed by recent grief, moves in with Lucas, the focus of Joshua's fascination begins to shift. Such are the surface ripples of this poignant and precisely attuned novel. Its depths reveal the largest of themes - mortality and love, and the way in which the souls of those with whom we shared our experiences inhabit our memories. Characters appear and recede, to reappear once again as the narrative shifts direction. Living voices merge with the multitudes of the dead, leaving their trace or fading away, for now. Live; Live; Live is a beautiful, deeply resonant work by a novelist at the height of his powers.

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In the small hours of January 1st, a man begins to write, having watched Le Grand Concert de la Nuit, a film in which a former lover - Imogen - plays a major role. For the next year, he writes something every day. His journal is a ritual of commemoration and an investigation of the character of Imogen and her relationships - with himself; with her family and friends; with other lovers. Imogen is an elusive subject, and The Great Concert of the Night is an intricate text, mixing scenes from the writer's memory and the present day, and scenes from Imogen's films, with observations on a range of subjects, from the visions of female saints to the history of medicine and the festivals of ancient Rome. But one subject comes to occupy him above all: what happens when a person becomes a character on the page.

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The small Tuscan town of Castelluccio is preparing for its annual festival, a spectacular pageant in which a leading role will be taken by the self-exiled English painter Gideon Westfall. A man proudly out of step with modernity, Westfall is regarded by some as a maestro, but in Castelluccio - as in the wider art world - he has his enemies, and his niece - just arrived from England - is no great admirer either. At the same time a local girl is missing, a disappearance that seems to implicate the artist. But the life and art of Gideon Westfall form just one strand of Nostalgia, a novel that teems with incidents and characters, from religious visionaries to folk heroes. Constantly shifting between the panoramic and the intimate, between the past and the present, Nostalgia is as intricately structured as a symphony, interweaving the narratives of history, legend, architecture - and much more - in a kaleidoscope of facts and invention.

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Daniel Brennan, approaching the premature end of his life, retreats to a room in his brother's suburban house. To divert himself and to entertain Ellen, his carer, he writes the journal that is Telescope, blurring truth, gossip and fiction in vignettes of his own life and the lives of those close to him. Above all he focuses on his siblings: mercurial Celia, whose life as a teacher in Italy seems to have run aground, and kindly Charlie, the entrepreneur of the family. Enriched with remarkable anecdotes and observations on topics ranging from tattoos and Tokyo street fashion to early French photography, Telescope is a startlingly original and moving book, a glimpse of the world through the eyes of a connoisseur of vicarious experience.

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In a new, practical format - the stunning book celebrating British wild flowers by award-winning garden writer Sarah Raven. Inspired by childhood excursions with her botanist father, Sarah Raven has travelled the length and breadth of the British Isles to find 500 of our most breathtakingly beautiful wild flowers. This lavishly illustrated book is divided by habitat, covering woods, downs and dales, lanes and hedgerows, meadows, coast, marshes and streams, moors and mountains, and wasteland. Sarah introduces a wide range of plants, telling you their names and something about them. Discover pulsatillas, fritillaries, bluebells, wild garlic, harebells, forget-me-nots, foxgloves, wood spurge, silverweed,purple cranesbill, deadly nightshade, St John's wort, comfrey, orchids,wood sorrel, snowdrops and more. There are glorious landscape photographs by Jonathan Buckley throughout, and one of his stunning plant portraits accompanies each of Sarah's authoritative, captivating species descriptions. Informative and lovely, Sarah Raven's Wild Flowers is a botanical marvel.

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Work in partnership with nature to nurture your soil for healthy plants and bumper crops - without back-breaking effort!Have you ever wondered how to transform a weedy plot into a thriving vegetable garden? Well now you can! By following the simple steps set out in No Dig, in just a few short hours you can revolutionize your vegetable patch with plants already in the ground from day one!Charles Dowding is on a mission to teach that there is no need to dig over the soil, but by minimizing intervention you are actively boosting soil productivity. In fact, The less you dig, the more you preserve soil structure and nurture the fungal mycelium vital to the health of all plants.This is the essence of the No Dig system that Charles Dowding has perfected over a lifetime growing vegetables.So put your gardening gloves on and get ready to discover: - Guides and calendars of when to sow, grow, and harvest.- Inspiring information and first-hand guidance from the author- “Delve deeper” features look in-depth at the No Dig system and the facts and research that back it up.- The essential role of compost and how to make your own at home.- The importance of soil management, soil ecology, and soil health.Now one of the hottest topics in environmental science, this "wood-wide web" has informed Charles's practice for decades, and he's proven it isn't just trees that benefit - every gardener can harness the power of the wood-wide web. Featuring newly- commissioned step-by-step photography of all stages of growing vegetables and herbs, and all elements of No Dig growing, shot at Charles’s beautiful market garden in Somerset, you too will be able to grow more veg with less time and effort, and in harmony with nature - so join the No Dig revolution today!A must-have volume for followers of Charles Dowding who fervently believe in his approach to low input, high yield gardening, as well as gardeners who want to garden more lightly on the earth, with environmentally friendly techniques like organic and No Dig.

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A SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER Fill your garden with flowers all-year round with inspiration, planting ideas and expert advice from Sarah Raven. Colour and scent are the hallmarks of Sarah Raven’s style – and they are simple luxuries that everyone can bring into their garden. A Year Full of Flowers reveals the hundreds of hardworking varieties that make the garden sing each month, together with the practical tasks that ensure everything is planted, staked and pruned at just the right time. Tracing the year from January to December at her home, Perch Hill, Sarah offers a complete and transporting account of a garden crafted over decades. Sharing the lessons learned from years of plant trials, she explains the methods that have worked for her, and shows you how to achieve a space that’s full of life and colour. Discover long-lasting, divinely scented tulips, roses that keep flowering through winter, the most magnificent dahlias and show-stopping alliums, as well as how to grow sweet peas up a teepee, take cuttings from chrysanthemums and stop mildew in its tracks. This is passionate, life-enriching gardening; it’s also simple, adaptable and can work for you. Sarah has made the garden central to her life – this book shows you how you can too.

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‘Sarah’s celebration of healthy eating is all about pleasure and enjoyment. Her love of good food is informed by her background as a doctor and now rooted in an on-going passion for growing and cooking with fruit and vegetables’ Yotam Ottolenghi Sarah Raven is not only an inspirational cook, but she was also once a doctor. Here she brings together her unique talents to offer a magnificent canon of recipes, sharing her medical knowledge to explain exactly how and why certain foods help protect your body and give you the best possible chance of a longer, healthier life. The 250 sumptuous and colourful recipes include Coconut sugar marmalade, Spiced aubergine salad with pomegranate raita, Lemon chicken and summer herb salad, Cashew hummus, Black bean burritos, Blood orange sorbet and Basil yoghurt ice cream. Woven through the book are 100 mini ‘superfood’ biographies, where Sarah draws on her expertise and experience to explain the science behind good-for-you ingredients such as kale, broccoli, salmon, red wine, blueberries, apples and seeds. With luminous photography by Jonathan Buckley, this generous and stylish book offers recipes to make you feel well, look well and live longer – by using the most beneficial ingredients and without ever compromising on sheer deliciousness.

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The perfect purchase for anyone wanting to garden on a shoestring - and grow your own garden from scratch, Grow Your Own Garden is an inspirational, accessible and practical gardening guide that will have great appeal to novices and more experienced gardeners alike. Full of beautiful colour photography and expert advice from the BBC's Carol Klein.'Buy it or drop big hints ... you will not be disappointed' -- ***** Reader review'Covers pretty much everything a gardener needs to know' -- ***** Reader review'Quite inspirational' -- ***** Reader review'Wonderful book written by a very knowledgeable lady' -- ***** Reader review'Brilliant book - so informative' -- ***** Reader review*****************************************************************************************Carol Klein is passionate about propagation. Her own garden, as seen on Gardeners' World, is almost grown entirely from cuttings and seeds and in this book she's on a mission to share her joy in working with nature to cultivate the plants she loves.Too often gardeners are intimidated by propagation, assume it's not for them and go for ready-grown plants from the garden centre. But Carol, a gifted communicator with her infectious enthusiasm, boundless horticultural expertise and easy practical explanations, shows just how simple and satisfying it is to grow your own plants, not to mention sustainable and cheap.She demonstrates, step-by-step, how to divide herbaceous perennials, nurture seedlings or grow new stock from root cuttings, stems or leaves, showing how there is no mystique involved and anybody can do it.

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‘To see a meadow in bloom is a great delight – it’s alive and teeming with life, mysterious, dynamic . . .’ So Christopher Lloyd began his much-admired instructive and celebratory account of meadows, first published in 2004. Few people knew more about meadow gardening than Lloyd, who spent much of his long life developing the flowering tapestries in his garden at Great Dixter, creating scenes of great beauty and a place of pilgrimage for lovers of wildflowers and wildlife. In Meadows he imparted that lifetime’s learning, exploring the development and management of meadow areas, explaining how to establish a meadow in a garden setting, describing the hundreds of beautiful grasses, bulbs and perennials and annuals that thrive in different meadow conditions and detailing how to grow them. Lloyd's classic text remains at the heart of this new book, which also includes – as well as much stunning new photography – an extensive introduction by Fergus Garrett, Lloyd's head gardener.

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Welcome to Europe as you've never known it before, seen through the peculiarities of its languages and dialects. Combining linguistics and cultural history, Gaston Dorren takes us on an intriguing tour of the continent, from Proto-Indo-European (the common ancestor of most European languages) to the rise and rise of English, via the complexities of Welsh plurals and Czech pronunciation. Along the way we learn why Esperanto will never catch on, how the language of William the Conqueror lives on in the Channel Islands and why Finnish is the easiest European language. Surprising, witty and full of extraordinary facts, this book will change the way you think about the languages around you. Polyglot Gaston Dorren might even persuade you that English is like Chinese.

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