Weeds

(Hardback)

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Description

Weeds by Nina Edwards discusses the history of weeds, and how certainplants come to be regarded as weeds and not others. Sprinkled with personalanecdotes and full of useful information, Weeds is a helpful resource forunderstanding exactly what turns an ordinary plant into a weed in varyingcontexts. Edwards reveals just how interesting and useful these seeminglyannoying plants can be.

Reviews

"Cow parsley in a flower arrangement, nettle soup, dandelion and burdock to drink, tansy for a cough or convolvulus strangling the plants in our borders, burrs sticking to our clothes, thistles scratching our legs on a public footpath. . . . Weeds are, to put it mildly, controversial. In Weeds Nina Edwards has considered all these and many, many more aspects of weeds in a detailed examination of the outcasts of the plant world. While I enjoy nothing more than a good gardening book, it had never occurred to me that weeds could be the subject of such a beautiful and fascinating volume." -- "Methodist Recorder"
"Edwards takes the reader through the history of weeds and their history in art. . . . The book is copiously illustrated with paintings and prints. . . . The narrative creeps through husbandry, gardening, poetry, food, medicine, and apocalypse. . . . From the Bible to Shakespeare, weeds manifest failure, weakness, sexuality, romanticism, freedom, lack of freedom, equality--you name it. . . . Weeds makes you think about our combat with plants, always one step ahead, without sentiment." -- "Sunday Telegraph"

Author Bio

Nina Edwards is a freelance writer and the author of Offal: A Global History (Reaktion, 2013). She lives in London.