'Homegrown': from a neglected field to a flourishing business
This week there’s no fiction but instead a small showcase of non-fiction books, ranging from topics of rewilding and growing our own food to a deep dive into the wellness industry, a fabulous book about staying comfortable in adverse conditions, a new cookbook and an assessment of prominent individuals in history.
Homegrown, Barrie Quinn, Gill, €24.99
Barrie Quinn is the founder of Portnoo Market Garden and took a neglected field in Donegal from barren nothingness to a flourishing business that has more than 770,000 followers on Instagram. We now know the benefits of growing things, and I’m not talking just about nutrition.
In fact, there’s no law that says you have to grow food at all – you can grow what you like. But the physical and mental healing associated with pottering about in the garden, on the balcony or even indoors on the windowsills, have all been well documented in recent years.
Being a market gardener, Quinn’s emphasis is on growing food that is untouched by chemicals. This is not just the story of how his thriving market garden came about, but a manual for finding peace and contentment in the growing process. A lovely book, it would make a lovely gift.
Setting the Land Free, Eoghan Dalton, Hachette, €21.99
Eoghan Dalton has become well known as a champion of rewilding and restoring natural ecosystems and here, having seen a thriving rewilding project in Scotland, he calls on readers to do the same here.
We are so out of whack with our natural world and nature has suffered so much, Dalton’s concerns about industrialised farming and monoculture plantation forestry is an urgent call to action. If they can largely fix their ecosystems in other countries, then we can do the same.
This book is a vision for biodiversity and balance, from an award-winning author who has successfully rewilded a 70-acre long neglected site on the Beara Peninsula, and over the years has transformed it into a thriving rainforest.
Profit, Prophets, Coaches and Kings, Jared Diamond, Allen Lane €25.99
This is a fascinating study by the Pulitzer-winning scientist and historian that focuses on people in power in politics, sport, business and religion, from Shakespeare up to 20th century leaders in their field. Could only Bill Gates have founded Microsoft, or, given, the same set of circumstances, could someone else have done it?
Was it only Shakespeare who could have written Hamlet while there were at least three other famous Elizabethan playwrights in London producing excellent material? Could only Seretse Khama have brought Botswana to its state of excellence after it gained independence?
If the weather had been less clement, would Genghis Khan have ruled at all? What about Hitler? What about the 19th century ‘prophets’ who founded religions in the US that still thrive to this day? Thought-provoking and utterly absorbing, it’s a marvellous and entertaining read.
Heat Shelter Water Food, Harrison Gardner, Gill, €24.99
As a perfectly timed antidote to the world’s stupidest book – the one we’ve all received in the post from our Gormless Government regarding what to do in an emergency – this book is an absolute lifesaver. Subtitled ‘How to be Ready for the Unexpected’, it is, Gardner says, a how-to book ‘to build resilience in your daily life’.
From securing heat and water to preparing for power outages (most of them not from storms but from data centres nobody wants), it’s nothing if not highly practical, full of knowledge, teeming with tips you won’t have thought of and a real manual for preparing our fragile homes, and indeed our fragile selves, in worrying times amid a spiralling energy crisis.
Gardner is a well known face from the telly, where he taught clueless people like yours truly how they could build their own homes, if they’re willing to learn basic skills. But he’s better than any celebrity, he’s a national treasure. Buy this book. Burn the stupid Gormless Government one.
Make Me Well, Xand van Tulleken, Cornerstone Press, €18.99
Subtitled ‘A Quest to Understand the Confusing World of Wellness’, this book is a deep dive into the world of ‘wellness’ as opposed to the world of healthcare, although the lines between the two are often blurred. But they’re blurred for a reason; the snake oil salesmen of old are alive and well and invading your life with their ads, their advice, their god-help-us influencers, their yoga retreats and healing crystals, their cutting edge marketing that exploits human vulnerability to its core.
The wellness industry is merely a 21st century, more invasive model of those snake oil seller days of yonder. The wrist contraptions counting your steps and measuring your blood pressure and telling you how well you slept – do you not know yourself how well you slept? – are other forms of ‘wellness’ that are manipulative and useless, but something like 31 percent of American adults wear, or have worn, one.
Wellness is about one thing; profit. It most certainly isn’t about health, physical or mental. Many of us have suspected this for years as we watched the wellness business bloat into the multi-billion-dollar behemoth it has become. But don’t take my word for it: read this brilliant, thoroughly researched and often funny book. Take off the fitbit and go paint something, or join a choir, or read a book, or take a walk. That’s wellness, actually.
One Pan Wins, Neven Maguire, Gill, €26.99
Neven Maguire is one of Ireland’s most likeable chefs, a quiet man who doesn’t need to flourish and ponce about the kitchen for the camera, there’s no fakery about him. And he’s encouraging the rest of us to take things easy in the kitchen with his latest book, containing 100 one-pot recipes from Lazy Lasagne to Apricot Upside-Down cake. Deliciously illustrated as always, this is a gorgeous collection with a difference; time is of the essence here. These are weekday recipes for busy evenings where fuss has to be minimal. Packed with information and imagination, it’s another winner for Maguire and a perfect gift for the cook in your life.
Footnotes
Open House Dublin hosts the Festival of Architecture from October 10 to 18, when there are lots of walk-through events in some of Dublin’s most spectacular architectural buildings. Booking is essential for some events, see full details on openhousedublin.com.