The beautiful cover and beguiling title had appealed to me from the release of this book a few months ago. Now it's a paperback and I was prompted to finally pick it up by someone who quoted to me one of the stories inside about the call in 1912 for women to be able to enjoy both bread and roses in life. Not just to be able to survive, by earning enough for their bread, but to flourish, to enjoy art, music and roses.

This book has many more gems about life and writing, power and politics, flowers, nature and gardening, and George Orwell, of course.

In a personal and compelling account of her response to reading Orwell's life through the prism of nature, beauty and cultivation, we learn all sorts of fascinating facts about this hugely influential figure whose work still has so much to say to us today.