The Garden Against Time

Olivia Laing

From Shelf: Official Indie Non-Fiction Bestsellers (week 15, 2025)

From one of our most original contemporary voices, The Garden Against Time is an inventive and deeply felt exploration of the long dream of a shared Eden, a common paradise.

The Garden Against Time is the No.1 Sunday Times bestseller from acclaimed writer Olivia Laing; a passionate, epic exploration of the power and possibilities of gardens.'What a wonderful book this is' - Nigel SlaterWhen Olivia Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual plants, the work drew them into an exhilarating investigation of paradise and its long association with gardens.Moving between the real and the imagined, from Milton's Paradise Lost to a wartime sanctuary in Italy, to a grotesque aristocratic pleasure ground funded by slavery, Laing interrogates the sometimes shocking cost of making paradise on earth.But the story of the garden can also be a place of rebel outposts and communal dreams, from the improbable queer utopia conjured by Derek Jarman on the beach at Dungeness to the vision of a common Eden cultivated by William Morris. New modes of living can and have been attempted amidst the flower beds, experiments that could prove vital in the coming era of radical change.'This book is what we need right now: paradise, regained' - Philip Hoare'Every generation gets one perfect book about gardens and this is ours' - Julia Bell'Prepare yourself to be enchanted' - Jilly Cooper'The most magical writing' - Jeremy Lee'I felt doubly alive after reading it' - Celia Paul'Quite literally unputdownable' - Jinny Blom'A book for thinking gardeners everywhere' - Mary Keen