The writer explains how the countryside helped him cope with depression and why sales of his forager’s bible always travel up when the economy heads downIt is more than 40 years now since Richard Mabey published his first and still bestselling book Food for Free,the original British forager’s bible. That book set in motion a trend for the fossicking of local produce and a re-wilding spirit that persists in both country and town. It also was the stepping-off point for Mabey’s own wonderfully outlaw relationship with the British landscape, which led to more than 30 books approximately hedgerow and forest – quests after nightingales and eulogies for beech trees – that include his magisterial compendium Flora Britannica, and his intimate history of his own battle with depression and its remedies,Nature Cure.
This month Mabey publishes a personal magnum opus of tales of man’s relation with the vegetable world, that takes you from Paleolithic cave art right up to mind-blowing experiments in discovering how trees and flowers communicate with each other and with insects. The book is suitably titled The Cabaret of Plants. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com