A beautifully produced volume with unusually confident design that makes a niche subject refreshingly accessible.
This year there has been a welcome flush of funkily designed gardening books, as if publishers are finally looking seriously at the needs and desires of the market they most want to entice: the young. Hollie Newton’s beautiful How to Grow and Paul Matson and Lucy Anna Scott’s infographic-style Sow How, for instance, seem squarely aimed at a younger, more design-savvy audience. Good Soil fits firmly within this trend: a beautiful book, big and chunky, with thick matte paper, quirky and imaginative pictures and large illustrations.
Unlike those other titles though, which are all-round handbooks for beginners, Good Soil is far more nerdy, concentrating its efforts almost entirely on soil. It seems a gamble, relying on a crossover of young, funky types and those interested in the real nuts and bolts of the garden, but it is certainly an interesting move. It is also a logical and generous one, because as us gnarled and ancient types know, if you get the soil right, the rest comes fairly easily, so why not make an entire beginner’s-style book of the subject?
What makes this book particularly accessible, despite its detailed content, is that it uses a magazine style with a constantly varying rhythm. This makes it easy to dip in and out of. A spread on pig manure (complete with full-page picture of a big, beautiful piggy) is followed by a spread on perfume (with grainy illustration of Chanel-style bottle) and sense of smell in the garden (with particular reference to manure, of course) and then by an interview with an organic farming couple from the Swedish island of Gotland. It’s an approach that held my interest throughout the book, and is a great way of looking at this fascinating subject from all angles. Let’s hope the youthful audience agrees, and that this is a sign of books to come.