“As movers and the moved both know”, John Updike noted, “books are heavy freight ... They make us think twice about changing addresses.” Books: A manifesto, or, How to build a library begins with the

EACH year, before the holiday brochures landed, John’s seed catalogue arrived in the post. Ellen waited, knowing its arrival would bring a flood of memories she wasn’t strong enough to deal with. She

John Piper was a modernist who rejected Modernism, a versatile artist who defied categories, but one who remained true to the spirit and detail of the places he painted

In December 1997, we moved from a tiny London garden to our new home, Old Park Barn in Buckinghamshire. It was daunting – a huge leap of faith from gardening in an urban courtyard to essentially an ov

REAL readers' gardens! Pruning roses A plant-packed suburban ...

To hide my new garden’s nakedness, I planted trees. Damson and mirabelle plum, ‘Discovery’ and reinette apples, two pears, a quince and a ‘Nottingham’ medlar. There was a purple-leaved filbert, a ‘Che