{"product_id":"orwell-s-roses-book-rebecca-solnit-9780593083369","title":"Orwell's Roses","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction\u003cbr\u003eFinalist for the PEN\/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAn exhilarating romp through Orwell's life and times and also through the life and times of roses. --Margaret Atwood \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker. \u003cb\u003e--Claire Messud, \u003ci\u003eHarper's\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eNobody who reads it will ever think of \u003ci\u003eNineteen Eighty-Four\u003c\/i\u003e in quite the same way. --\u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eA lush exploration of roses, pleasure, and politics, and a fresh take on George Orwell as an avid gardener whose political writing was grounded in his passion for the natural world\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the year 1936 a writer planted roses. So begins Rebecca Solnit's new book, a reflection on George Orwell's passionate gardening and the way that his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, and the natural world illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSparked by her unexpected encounter with the surviving roses he planted in 1936, Solnit's account of this understudied aspect of Orwell's life explores his writing and his actions--from going deep into the coal mines of England, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, critiquing Stalin when much of the international left still supported him (and then critiquing that left), to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism. Through Solnit's celebrated ability to draw unexpected connections, readers encounter the photographer Tina Modotti's roses and her Stalinism, Stalin's obsession with forcing lemons to grow in impossibly cold conditions, Orwell's slave-owning ancestors in Jamaica, Jamaica Kincaid's critique of colonialism and imperialism in the flower garden, and the brutal rose industry in Colombia that supplies the American market. The book draws to a close with a rereading of \u003ci\u003eNineteen Eighty-Four\u003c\/i\u003e that completes her portrait of a more hopeful Orwell, as well as a reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50468146118929,"sku":"CIN0593083369G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50828734595345,"sku":"CIN0593083369VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50894443741457,"sku":"GOR013029002","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0593083369.jpg?v=1750783756","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/products\/orwell-s-roses-book-rebecca-solnit-9780593083369","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}