Raised Bed Revolution by Tara Nolan

This is a very comprehensive book covering all you need to know about raised bed gardening, plus more. It gives plenty of examples of different kinds of raised beds so is perfect for finding inspiration. Also covered is building and using raised beds in both large and small spaces, including vertical gardens, growing in repurposed containers, cold frames and much more. 

The book contains detailed instructions for building your own raised beds from wood and customising them for example adding benches to them. Building from repurposed wood is covered, as is making a raised bed with a pond in it! We are taught how to make planters out of everything from an old vintage suitcase to gas pipes. One of the main features of the book is building your own beds and planters out of wood so be aware of this if you have no intention of ever making your own.

In addition to creating beds and planters, the book also covers what to grow and has suggestions of what to plant in each planter that you are guided to make yourself. So even if you do not wish to make your own beds, you can still use the planting guidelines in the book.

Overall, I was very impressed both with the quality of information in this book and the clear photos and diagrams. If you are interested in creating your own raised bed garden, or even growing in planters on your patio, you would do well to read this book.

With thanks to Netgalley and Cool Springs Press for providing an advance review copy. All opinions in this review are my own.

Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Everything, Beautiful by Ella Frances Sanders

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading this book. A book about beauty; such an abstract concept, as well as subjective. Good for an essay, perhaps, but how do you fill a book?

The answer? With a lot of filler - handwritten quotes taking up a whole page, artwork taking up several pages. The book itself is written very well, describing beauty in poetic language and evoking the imagery of the beauty it describes. It is a very gentle book containing philosophical musings on the meaning of beauty and what society views as beauty vs. actual beauty, as well as lots of paragraphs listing what the author herself thinks is beautiful.

However, I found the constant alternating between typed paragraphs and yet another quotation written in a hard-to-read style of someone with poor handwriting quite jarring, and the illustrations that go over two pages, also with quotes on them, hard to read on an e-reader. Overall, it was not a smooth reading experience. I suspect this may be the kind of book you buy in hard copy to flick through when you have five minutes. It is hard to read from cover to cover due to the constant shifting from print to handwritten text - don’t buy if you are expecting a lot of content because it simply isn’t here. That said, the illustrations are pleasing enough and what content is there is pleasing to read. 

With thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK for providing an advance review copy. All opinions in this review are my own.

Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐