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Where the Hornbeam Grows

A Journey in Search of a Garden

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Where the Hornbeam Grows

By: Beth Lynch
Narrated by: Joan Walker
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About this listen

 'Beth Lynch's subtle and moving book is about the heart-work of finding and making a place for oneself in the world; the effort of putting down roots, the pain of tearing them up again, and how one grows to know another person or another landscape. Horticulture and human feelings twine together here - and what flourishes in the several gardens of this book is, in the end, hope' ROBERT MACFARLANE

'I loved Beth Lynch's tender, wise meditation on grief, home, and the restorative magic of making a garden' OLIVIA LAING

Out of place and lonely after a relocation to Switzerland, Beth Lynch realises that she needs to get her hands dirty if she is to put down roots. And so she sets about making herself at home in the way she knows best - by tending a garden, growing things. The search for a garden takes her across the country, through meadows and on mountain paths where familiar garden plants run wild, to the rugged hills of the Swiss Jura where she begins to plant her paradise. WHERE THE HORNBEAM GROWS is a memoir about carrying a garden inwardly through loss, dislocation and relocation, about finding a sense of wellbeing in a green place of one's own, and about the limits of paradise in a peopled world. It is a powerful exploration of how, in nurturing a corner of the natural world, we ourselves are nurtured.©2019 Beth Lynch (P)2019 Orion Publishing Group Biographies & Memoirs Gardening & Horticulture Gardening Heartfelt
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Critic reviews

Beth Lynch's subtle and moving book is about the heart-work of finding and making a place for oneself in the world; the effort of putting down roots, the pain of tearing them up again, and how one grows to know another person or another landscape. Horticulture and human feelings twine together here - and what flourishes in the several gardens of this book is, in the end, hope (ROBERT MACFARLANE)
I loved Beth Lynch's tender, wise meditation on grief, home, and the restorative magic of making a garden (OLIVIA LAING, author of THE LONELY CITY)
A lyrical but also fiercely funny account of how having green fingers can cure your soul (Kathryn Hughes)
A quiet celebration of the garden, and the act of gardening. Through her connection to the earth, Lynch finds refuge, beauty and a sense of restoration - and her writing offers the same. I loved it (SUSAN FLETCHER)
A lyrical reminiscence of cultivating a sense of rootedness in a new and (at least seemingly) inhospitable environment (Rafia Zakaria)
Beth Lynch grew up in rural East Sussex, where her parents, avid gardeners, taught her to love plants. As an adult she was uprooted to Switzerland with her husband, leaving behind the hellebores, geraniums, aquilegias and cornflowers dear to her heart. The move was a melancholy one. Feeling herself lonely, she turned again to the restorative magic of gardening to cure her homesickness. This tender, wise book shows how in doing so she reconnected with all that was familiar and found happiness
[Lynch] writes lyrically about the natural world (Constance Craig Smith)
Beth's prose is as iridescent as the alpine gentians she describes. Her deep love of plants and gardens shines off every page (JESSICA SEATON)
Engaging . . . the wistful dreams of the garden-less gardener are not steeped in green lawns and tidy borders; they luxuriate on wilder things - plants bearing emotional attachments and wilful, obstinate character . . . Lynch's prose deals liberally in astute and subtle observation and, similar to reading V.S. Naipaul or Jan Morris, I found myself inclined towards multiple sittings . . . exceptional writing (Matt Collins)

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A wonderful book ruined

This is a beautifully written book, with a compelling true story and some of the most exquisite descriptive writing I have ever come across. But it is completely ruined by the irritating narration. Please Audible, re-record this with someone who doesn’t read with a faux melancholia and a tone of voice that never alters no matter the subject; doesn’t have an annoying habit of barely finishing sentences audibly and lets the words trail off into a whisper (presumably the narrator feels this adds atmosphere. It doesn’t. It just makes me want to reach out and smack my device); and doesn’t employ a ridiculous over emphasis on any words containing -sh. My advice to anyone considering this is to buy the book and find a willing 6 year old to read it to you. They’d do a better job.

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