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Richard Mabey

Weeds: The Story of Outlaw Plants Hardcover – 14 Oct. 2010

by Richard Mabey (Author)

4.5 258 ratings

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Weeds survive, entombed in the soil, for centuries. They are as persistent and pervasive as myths. They ride out ice ages, agricultural revolutions, global wars. They mark the tracks of human movements across continents as indelibly as languages. Yet to humans they are the scourge of our gardens, saboteurs of our best-laid plans. They rob crops of nourishment, ruin the exquisite visions of garden designers, and make unpleasant and impenetrable hiding places for urban ne'er-do-wells.

Weeds can be destructive and troubling, but they can also be beautiful, and they are the prototypes of most of the plants that keep us alive. Humans have grappled with their paradox for thousands of years, and with characteristic verve and lyricism, Richard Mabey uncovers some of the deeper cultural reasons behind the attitudes we have to such a huge section of the plant world.

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Profile Books
Publication date

14 Oct. 2010
Dimensions

14.4 x 3.5 x 22.2 cm
ISBN-10

184668076X
ISBN-13

978-1846680762
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Product description

Review

This book will open your eyes to the significance, wonder and exasperation felt about weeds. I couldn't put the book down once I started reading. Mabey offers a diversity and richness of fact, fiction, philosophy and fun ... [he] opens our minds and hearts in unexpected ways to the fallacy of an implacable divide between people and nature ... a great read. -- Professor Stephen Hopper, Director, Kew Gardens

Richard Mabey's journey through the realm of weeds is witty, learned and original. It says as much about us as these maligned plants, and is a surprising tale. His delightful book will not make weeding any easier but it will make it an intellectual activity and thus a philosophical one. The writing is stunning, the argument undeniable. Some plants and most people have a problem which will never go away. ― Ronald Blythe

Mr Mabey is the kind of person you wish you had with you on every country walk, identifying, explaining, deducing, drawing on deep knowledge lightly worn. ― Country Life

A fascinating display of personal knowledge of the history of different species and their changing status in the minds of our ancestors. Excellent. ― Daily Mail

[Mabey] is the steward of a pastoral tradition in which highly personal responses to landscape are matched by expert environmental concerns; his ideas have become standard with no loss of urgency ... he deepens symbolic value by combining close attention to details with a more sweeping sense of things. In Weeds, Mabey has written a memorable hymn to the marginal. -- Andrew Motion ― Guardian

The nation's favourite nature writer. ― Sunday Telegraph

Mabey weaves social history, psychology, literature and art into his clear rendering of plant biology. Explanations of evolution sit alongside explorations of flower symbolism in Shakespeare. ― Nature

Told with delight in the "sheer opportunism" of weeds, and their right to do what all living things do - to grow, whenever and wherever possible. A treat. ― Financial Times

Enraptured, visionary, witty and erudite ... firmly in the Gilbert White tradition. Why, by the way, can English writers do this better than anybody else?

A fascinating read.

― Telegraph

A witty, wise insight into the floral world and our capricious relationship with some of its more boisterous inhabitants. ― BBC Countryfile

Delightful and casually learned. ― Economist

Mabey's amble through the low-level, high-rise world of weeds is rich in lore and usefulness. As in all his work, what comes across is his abiding passion for plants and the sustenance they give both imaginatively and spiritually.
Richard Mabey writes about weeds with the confident affection of someone discussing old friends ... this [book] is as much a celebration of the vexed coupling between mankind and plantlife as it is a fine marriage between subject and author.

-- Bella Bathurst ― Observer/The Guardian

Mabey is the gardener's greatest comforter. -- Stephen Anderton ― The Times

A fascinating read. You read this book you will never look at weeds in quite the same way again - Richard has done them a service and us by enabling the reader to join him in this entertaining and insightful book. ― www.recklessgardener.com

A newish sort of nature has flourished: desolate, unruly, even rank and unwelcome, but suited to an age of ecological decline and catastrophist visions. Richard Mabey is in several senses the modest eminence behind this almost-movement ... As ever with Mabey there's a poetry to all this creeping ecology. Even the book's glossary of plant names is a verbal joy ... He's a precise and witty writer ― Sunday Telegraph

Mabey is incapable of writing a tedious sentence and this book strays into as many byways as the seed of rosebay willow herb ... completely riveting ... he's at his best in the most unexpected areas.
His strength lies in his ability to view his subject not dispassionately, for he writes with magnificent passion, but in a way that removes us, the true interlopers as the most important characters in the plot.

-- Anna Pavord ― Gardens Illustrated

The best book on British wild flowers in a decade ... Read this quietly enthralling book and you will never again look at these most familiar plants in quite the same way. ― Independent

Mabey is as well versed in the literature of weeds as in the botany, richly weaving his own observations with the words of others; Shakespeare on nettles, Ruskin on poppies, Thoreau on brambles and Will Self on 'blisterweed'.
Mabey uses weeds as a way to explore wider ideas about the natural world and how humans interact with it ... a profound and sympathetic meditation.
You'll look at weeds in a whole new way.

― Sunday Times

Weaves together his unrivalled botanical knowledge with tales from history. ― Countryman

A fascinating and eye-opening book, one that makes you view the world around you afresh. ― Big Issue Scotland

A fantastic cultural history of vagabond plants ... fascinating and truly eye-opening. ― Big Issue London

Profound stuff ― Irish News

A delightful and quietly funny read ― Irish Times

He never disappoints - buy this book for the gardener in your life, and convert them to the wonder of weeds ― Guardian

As long as humanity has tried to control nature, weeds have been our unwanted companions. In this fascinating, richly detailed book, Richard Mabey gives weeds their full due, chronicling their changing relationship to us from the ancient world to the age of invasive species and genetically modified plans. Weeds are not just a particular collection of plants, Mabey makes clear; they are, instead, a reflection of our own culture - perhaps, our own weediness. -- Carl Zimmer, author of Evolution

Weeds are persistent, ubiquitous, and, to the uninitiated, annoying, but they are also biological marvels that have evolved side by side with human civilization. Richard Mabey's personal, historical, and cultural viewpoint converts weeds into intellectually stunning wild flowers! -- Bill Streever, author of Cold

Richard Mabey is Britain's leading natural history writer, and this is his witty and beguiling meditation on weeds and their wily ways. Mabey suggests that weeds and wild flowers, those ruthless "gatecrashers of civilization" are really part of nature's secret immune system, rushing in to repair our damaged planet. Provoking and affectionate, this extraordinary book challenges notions of both culture and agriculture. You will never look at a weed, or flourish a garden fork, in the same way again. -- Richard Holmes, author of The Age of Wonder

Book Description

A lively and lyrical cultural history of plants in the wrong place, by one of Britain's best and most admired nature writers

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Profile Books; Main edition (14 Oct. 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 184668076X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1846680762
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.4 x 3.5 x 22.2 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 816,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 3,837 in Botany & Plant Sciences
- 5,543 in Garden Plants

Customer reviews:
4.5 258 ratings

About the author

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Richard Mabey

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Richard Mabey is widely hailed as Britain's fore-most nature writer. He is the author of the groundbreaking book on foraging in the countryside Food for Free and the editor of The Oxford Book of Nature Writing. He has narrated and produced popular BBC television and radio series, and has written for the Guardian, Granta, and other publications. He lives in Norfolk, England.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

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kittenheels

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 April 2023

Verified Purchase

Full of fascinating insights and about so much more than weeds. A really good book for anyone interested in their surroundings and nature.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 December 2021

Happy with the book

Richard Mandy has written another exceptional book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 January 2022

Verified Purchase

Ever since reading Flora Britannica I have been a fan of his writing. He combines lots of knowledge with a passion and wit. It makes you think about plans and our relationship with them

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 April 2022

Verified Purchase

Fascinating book.
You'll never have to use the word WEEDS again.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 August 2018

Verified Purchase

What a fascinating book, well written and full of information. Mabey expands upon the idea that weeds are just 'plants in the wrong place, and explains that to some extent they complement plants that we cultivate deliberately.......indeed, even Japanese Knotweed started off as a prized garden plant! Weeds respond to particular circumstances - for instance, Rosebay Willowherb flourished on bomb sites after the Second World War, which is why it was often known as 'bombweed'.

One person found this helpful

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P. K. Wike

Not a reference work

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 January 2018

Verified Purchase

This is an entertaining read, a ramble through the weeds found on disused areas aground our towns. I was expecting a reference of the weeds origins and spread, the information is in here, but not in any order. As with his other books, its still a pleasure to read, as well as being informative.

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Dave W

A good read for wildlife gardeners

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 March 2014

Verified Purchase

I am very interested in nature and I garden for wildlife. Wildflowers that some people regard as 'weeds' (and that is their right to do so) are the mainstay of the flora in my wildlife garden, along with more 'cultivated' varieties. So to read about where many of these plants originated is fascinating to me. It lets me know I'm on the right track. I'd recommend this book to all those interested in wild plants and wildlife in general. I read it as an ebook on an original Kindle, so probably missed out on any quality illustrations, but this didn't detract from the book.

5 people found this helpful

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Nature lover

Most enjoyable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 April 2015

Verified Purchase

This was a great read for anyone interested in British wildlife. Its a beautifully written account of the diverse nature through the year, by a knowledgeable and observant naturalist, who really understands the countryside. It took some serious patience and hardiness to lurk in the cover of a hedgerow (on his own land it's important to note) and watch the world go by. I looked forward to picking up the book (well ipad) each time and was sad that such a wonderful journey had to end.

3 people found this helpful

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