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Orwell's roses / Rebecca Solnit.

Solnit, Rebecca, (author.).

Summary:
"A fresh take on George Orwell as a far more nature-loving figure than is often portrayed, and a dazzlingly rich meditation on roses, gardens, and the value and use of beauty and pleasure in the face of brutality and horror. "In the spring of 1936 a man planted roses." That man was George Orwell, shortly before he went off to fight against fascism in Spain. Today, those rosebushes are still thriving. This is the starting point for Rebecca Solnit's new book, which presents another side of Orwell, a neglected arcadian Orwell who took enormous pleasure in the natural world and found great meaning and value in it. Orwell's planting of the roses is an axle from which Solnit's chapters radiate out like spokes as she brilliantly explores its various contexts, perspectives, and meanings, following the contours of Orwell's life and tracking how deeply enmeshed the love of nature is in all his writing. Journeying to the cottage in Wallingford where Orwell lived in 1936, she examines his desire to be agrarian and settled, how gardening restored him, and how planting something can be an act of fidelity and faith. Probing at the beauty and meaning of roses, she draws in the revolutionary photography and politics of Tina Modotti and makes a clandestine visit to a Columbian rose factory, where 80% of America's roses for sale are grown. She tracks the history of gardening, showing how the desire to garden is culturally determined and often rooted in class, recounts the immense battles over breeding and genetics in Russia during Stalin's time, and probes into the colonialist roots of Orwell's forebears, who worked in opium production in India and profiteered from sugar and slavery in Jamaica. Solnit shows how these points of intersection illuminate Orwell's work, and how that illumination shines forth on larger questions about beauty, pleasure, meaning, relationship, and hope. Her book establishes that "Orwellian" could stand for something more than ominous, corrupt, and sinister"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780593083369
  • ISBN: 0593083369
  • Physical Description: 308 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
  • Publisher: [New York] : Viking, [2021]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-294) and index.
Subject: Orwell, George, 1903-1950.
Authors, English > 20th century > Biography.
Orwell, George, 1903-1950 > Homes and haunts.
Orwell, George, 1903-1950 > Knowledge.
Roses.
Gardening.
Nature.
Genre: Biographies.

Available copies

  • 12 of 12 copies available at SPARK Libraries.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 12 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Abington Community Library 92 ORWELL (Text) 50687011748921 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Albright Memorial Library 92 ORWELL (Text) 50686016103991 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Altoona Area Public Library 828.91209 SOL (Text) 33240004943141 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Indian Valley Public Library B Orwell (Text) 39427103616603 Nonfiction Room: Adult Biography Available -
Memorial Library of Nazareth and Vicinity 92 ORW SOL 2021 (Text) 31001101833813 Adult Biography Available -
Spring Township Library ORW (Text) 33249024573655 Biography Available -
Trone Memorial Library (East Berlin) 828.912 SOLNIT (Text)
Endowment: Hilda O. Nitchman Named Endowment for the Jean Barnett Trone Memorial Library of East Berlin - "In Memory of My Parents Cornelius H. and Albertia E. Nitchman", 2021
35740635786569 Nonfiction Available -
West Lawn-Wyomissing Hills Library ORW (Text) 33249024344834 Biography Available -
Allentown Public Library 828.912 SOLN (Text) 34455006835439 Adult Nonfiction 1st FL Available -
Bethlehem Main Library B ORWELL (Text) 33062009508301 Adult Biography On Display -


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