Books like Hatfield's Herbal — picked by fans

It starts with arguably the most famous first line any novelist has ever written, and I certainly couldn’t stop reading once I had absorbed that.

Rebecca is a classic for all sorts of great reasons. For me, the house is a character here. Manderley is as Gothic as I could ever wish for (and I LOVE Gothic).

Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, is one of the most sinister characters ever written. When this novel was first published (1938), certain subjects were pretty much taboo. In the light of today's increased awareness of people’s differing sexualities, I think it’s probably easier to understand her motives – not that it makes her any less scary.

For me, this is a masterpiece of storytelling that defies genre categorization and puts du Maurier firmly in my top favourite authors list.

This is extraordinary, meditative, and beautiful. For me, it fulfils the most important element of any book – that magical sense of stepping into another world. In this case, it is the world of Katherine Swift as she describes the creation of her garden in Shropshire. Yet it is so much more than that. The book is built around the daily structure of monastic prayer, as in a medieval Book of Hours, and this contemplative mood flows through every page, taking us on a discursive journey involving horticulture, history, and the stories of some of the people who previously lived at Morville. Whenever I read it, I get that all-important sense of connection with nature and the rhythm of life.

I love books that chronicle the passing of time, going from dark and gloomy January, through the quixotic summer months and right into late December which I always think of as the fag-end of the year. The Ivington Diaries is a collection of Monty Don’s diary entries about his home and garden over several years. With charming honesty, he describes his gardening failures as well as his successes, the people he knows, and the vagaries of the changing seasons. Whenever I read this book it casts a spell over me and I feel as though I’m living in a secret corner of the garden at Ivington, watching all its comings and goings.

I love all Alan Garner’s novels but have chosen this one because I have long been captivated by the deft and frequently quite terrifying way that Garner weaves a dark heart of fantasy and elemental magic into an everyday story of modern relationships—divorce, re-marriage, class prejudice, and economic inequality.

The book has haunted my imagination for over thirty years now, which, to me, is a sign of the work of a truly great author. I also love the way the book retells stories from ancient legend, reworking some of the central themes of the Welsh Mabinogion—some of the very earliest tales of magic and fantasy.

So many books with beautifully illustrated florals are aimed at children, but the magic of flora is not just for kids. A wonderful example of this is The Illustrated Herbiary, which focuses on 36 botanicals like rosemary (for remembrance, just like in my book), apple, and clover. Filled with rituals and reflections for each herb, Kate O’Hara’s beautiful and detailed illustrations bring Maia Toll’s words to life.

This is an illustrated novel that originated with an actual poison garden created by the Duchess of Northumberland at her estate in northern England.

This garden at Alnwick Castle is full of poisonous plants and served as the setting for scenes in several Harry Potter movies.

The Poison Diaries unfolds like a fable, about a teenage girl, Jessamine, daughter of a poison plant botanist, who must tend to the poison plants by herself. That is, until a boy named Weed appears.

The novel vividly describes the germination of Atropa Belladonna, with its deadly black berries. This beautifully illustrated book about a poison plant gardener is truly enchanting.

We think this is Matthew’s masterwork, forming the most thorough and sensitive contemporary herbal in English. When we say ‘sensitive’ we are referencing Matthew’s intuitive understanding of a herb’s specific qualities, or virtues.

He combines this feeling for a plant’s individuality with a thorough knowledge of the way it has been favoured in traditional herbal medicine and how he has used it himself, quoting from cases arising in his long clinical experience. A proponent of ‘drop dosing’ or using the least amount of herb necessary, he is often surprising, sometimes controversial, but always well-informed and elegant in his work.

This book is fairly new, by an Aussie environmental historian. I got hooked from the first page because, once again, it’s well written and I learned stuff about plants that I didn’t know already. The Wardian Case was a kind of travelling greenhouse designed by an English amateur naturalist named Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward in Victorian times. His simple invention made it possible to send plants around the world on the decks of sailing ships -and resulted in the huge array of species for sale in garden centres today. Beautiful plants that we now take for granted -like roses, rhododendrons, magnolias, wisteria, countless ferns, and more—travelled thousands of miles from their countries of origin in these unpretentious but surprisingly efficient boxes. A great story, with good photos.

If you want a big book of florals, look no further than Botanicum. Everything from algae to orchids is covered in this illustrated encyclopedia, featuring Katie Scott’s artwork paired with Professor Kathy Willis’ writing. I’m drawn to the fine lines in Scott’s work, with her illustrations of parasitic and carnivorous plants being my absolute favorite pages. Fascinating for both children and adults, I’d highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys getting lost in the details of fantastic florals.

Delving into the most significant herbs among Indigenous peoples of North America, Dr. Salmón revels in the stories that stitch plants into the memory of a culture. The result is an engaging repertoire of 80 beloved and well-illustrated herbs. Dr. Salmón, an ethnobotanist and professor, has marinated each entry in this beautiful book in a lifetime of learning from people who have profound knowledge of their homelands. Its title is inspired by his own tribe, the Rarámuri (Tarahumara) of the Mexican Sierra Madres, whose concept of iwígara reflects the understanding that all of life is interconnected and “shares the same breath.” I love the spirit of this book with its focus on narrative and come-sit-by-the-fire storytelling. If you’re hungry for the action and poetry of a good story heaped onto a plate of botanical legend and lore, this book is for you.