LIBRARY: The latest books reviewed

BY PENNY WOODWARD

OURPICK

Eat Weeds Diego Bonetto THAMES & HUDSON, 2022, $49.99

This field guide to foraging is an excellent addition to Australian writing on this topic. With delicious photography by Hellene Algie and terrific design, Diego Bonetto tells us his story from foraging as a child on his family’s dairy farm in northern Italy, to migration to Australia and a realisation of the untapped resources available here. Telling the story of wild plants is his passion, and this shines through. He devotes chapters to the backyard, streets and parklands, the sea, river, and forest. He not only looks at identification and safety, but also sustainability and taking only what you need. There are also fabulous recipes from dandelion and macadamia pesto to warrigal flatbread, and careful explanations of medicinal uses. There’s a depth of knowledge that’s reassuring, but also a lyricism and affinity to plants and the planet that’s heartwarming. Of Friends & Gardens Carolyn Landon HARDIE GRANT, 2022, $50

As gardeners we love to be in our own backyards but we also love to garden with friends. This book is all about the friends and activists who gathered more than 30 years ago to help buy and maintain the land that became the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne in Victoria. The official Friends Group that formed in 1991 continued to support the ongoing maintenance of the land with natural wetlands, woodlands and heathlands and then the next step – the creation of the marvelous contemporary botanic gardens full of Australian native plants from all over Australia. This award-winning garden has now been visited by hundreds of thousands of people. Carolyn Landon tells the story of these gardens though the experiences, thoughts and eyes of the Friends who have worked, travelled, talked, shared, protected, supported and conserved for decades. Drop Bear Evelyn Araluen UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND PRESS, 2021, $24.99

Confronting, funny, searingly honest – this book of poetry and essays by descendant of the Bundjalung Nation, Evelyn Araluen, has just won the 2022 Stella Prize (a literary award for Australian women). One of the judges describes her as both acerbic and witty, while revelling in difficult questions. Another says that hers “is a dynamic voice that demands to be heard”. It’s a small book but it took me days to read (and re-read) each poem, and to contemplate. Confronting colonialism intertwined with her personal story, Araluen talks of learning her own language and dealing with discrimination on a path from the entangled present to a decolonial future. For her children she says to “look at this earth we cauterised/the healing we took with flame/ I will show them a place/they will never have to leave”. Vintage Knits National Library of Australia NLA PUBLISHING, 2022, $39.99

With a resurgence in knitting and a move towards using more natural and recyclable fibres, this is a timely book from our national library. As well as the 25 patterns for women, men and children, there are also sections that tell us more about the history of knitting, our different wools, the sheep that grow them and much more. We traverse time from the first woollen mill in 1801, to yarn bombing and Knit in Public Day in June each year. With much more in between. The patterns come from books, magazines and newspapers from the 1930s–1950s and are adapted and tested so they’ll work for modern knitters. And it’s not just a book for women. These days you’ll see knitters of both sexes on trains, in theatres, at the footy and of course at home watching tellie.

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