Vanishing Landscapes
- Author Bonnie Lander Johnson
- Narrator Deirdre O'Connell
- Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
- Publish Date 17 April 2025
- Run Time 8 hours and 56 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Biography and non-fiction prose, Social and cultural history, Trees, wildflowers and plants: general interest.
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What to expect
'Rich and replenishing ... I felt lovesick for it after it was done' ELEANOR CATTON, Booker Prize-winning author
'A fascinating, original story' TLS
'I really loved this book' JENN ASHWORTH
'A real treasure' ROWAN WILLIAMS, former Archbishop of Canterbury
__________
In the past, we were deeply bound to all things green and growing. We once knew the landscape and the plants around us as well as we knew ourselves. But today our relationship with plants and nature has grown distant - we have lost a sense of plants as precious.
Vanishing Landscapes tells the story of how plants disappeared from our daily lives one by one. First were apples, then household medicines like saffron, cloth dyes like woad, grapes for making wine, and then, eventually, the timber and reeds we used to build our houses and the wheat we grew for our bread. In their place came the first corporation, the first factory, the banking system, private property, global trade, and modern medicine.
The history of these plants shows us how we became modern, but it also shows a path to recover some of what we have lost. In Vanishing Landscapes, Bonnie Lander Johnson goes in search of the old life and the people who are still connected to the land. She meets farmers in Ireland, wine makers in Yorkshire and cloth dyers in the Highlands. She cuts reeds in the watery Norfolk fens and camps overnight in a West Country orchard to gaze up at an unchanging sky.
Vanishing Landscapes brings to life a world we never knew but still long for, and reminds us that it's not too late to find a way back.
©2025 Bonnie Lander Johnson (P)2025 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
'A fascinating, original story' TLS
'I really loved this book' JENN ASHWORTH
'A real treasure' ROWAN WILLIAMS, former Archbishop of Canterbury
__________
In the past, we were deeply bound to all things green and growing. We once knew the landscape and the plants around us as well as we knew ourselves. But today our relationship with plants and nature has grown distant - we have lost a sense of plants as precious.
Vanishing Landscapes tells the story of how plants disappeared from our daily lives one by one. First were apples, then household medicines like saffron, cloth dyes like woad, grapes for making wine, and then, eventually, the timber and reeds we used to build our houses and the wheat we grew for our bread. In their place came the first corporation, the first factory, the banking system, private property, global trade, and modern medicine.
The history of these plants shows us how we became modern, but it also shows a path to recover some of what we have lost. In Vanishing Landscapes, Bonnie Lander Johnson goes in search of the old life and the people who are still connected to the land. She meets farmers in Ireland, wine makers in Yorkshire and cloth dyers in the Highlands. She cuts reeds in the watery Norfolk fens and camps overnight in a West Country orchard to gaze up at an unchanging sky.
Vanishing Landscapes brings to life a world we never knew but still long for, and reminds us that it's not too late to find a way back.
©2025 Bonnie Lander Johnson (P)2025 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Critics Review
A rich and replenishing work that traces the roots, seeds, and cuttings of our modern sensibilities, weaving together the story of seven species to show us what was lost and what might be regained, and to remind us that before land became mere property, it was earth, life, livelihood, commons, and creation. I felt lovesick for it after it was done.
I really loved this book. It's full of longing and nostalgia, but there's a clear-sightedness here too, an acknowledgement of modernity's gifts as well as its losses. Vanishing Landscapes conveys a delicate, informed state of enchantment - as much celebration as elegy. It's a bittersweet love letter to what we have lost, and what exists around us in the here and now.
In this intriguing history, Bonnie Lander Johnson interrogates seven plants to understand how Britain shed its medieval mindset and became modern in just two centuries ... This is a fascinating, original story, informed by the author's profession as an academic and her interest in writing fiction. Johnson roots her grand narrative in visits to spirited individuals across Britain and Ireland who practise the old ways of growing and making, introducing us to the sounds, smells and colours of particular landscapes. Wry asides keep nostalgia in check ... By emphasizing what we have lost as well as gained in becoming modern, Vanishing Landscapes challenges accepted views of progress.
Vanishing Landscapes offers a unique interweaving of insights about culture, cult and cultivation. From the history of cider apples and the deforestation caused by early modern warfare to the impact of republicanism on wine-drinking, this is a brilliantly ambitious and authentic cultural history. A real treasure.
Critical and lyrical by turns, Vanishing Landscapes is a timely study of Britain's historical relationship to nature. A book to engage the mind and speak to the heart.
Such a clever construct using seven plants to embody a story that crosses counties, countries, and centuries. We witness, with great dramatic effect, the impacts of big political decisions being played out at a local level in the lives of ordinary people. When I read this, I began to realise that I'd known only half a narrative, and this fills in so many gaps in my understanding.
A gripping, conversational and carefully researched story ... a eulogy to a lost way of being among the plants and places of Britain and Ireland ... The writing is both richly researched and personal ... Lander Johnson's graceful intertwining of her own observations, with historical literacy and attention to detail, invites the reader into another way of seeing ... In sharing this personal attentiveness to, and relationship with, the landscapes, Lander Johnson nudges us to go and try it for ourselves.
Vanishing Landscapes offers the intriguing promise of a way back to a life closer to nature ... Lander Johnson offers an eclectic mixture of history, personal reflection, and present-day reporting ... The story of humanity's premodern relationship with nature and early-modern alienation makes for riveting reading. Lander Johnson's chapters ... beautifully evoke the mystique of the past.
Beautifully written, and utterly absorbing, Vanishing Landscapes is a compelling and original book which explores Britain's past through the lens of seven iconic plants. In the process, it questions our approaches to land, history and conservation in a stimulating and timely fashion. It is a joy to read.
Abounds in literary and historical texture: a feast for lovers of deep England, and perhaps my favourite new title of this year.
| Author | Bonnie Lander Johnson |
|---|---|
| Narrator | Deirdre O'Connell |
| Duration | 8 hours and 56 minutes |
| Release Date | |
| ISBN | 9781399731553 |
| Format | Audiobook |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Genre | Biography and non-fiction prose, Social and cultural history, Trees, wildflowers and plants: general interest |
| Availability | AU, GB, IE |
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