ASU Book Group: ‘The Garden’ by Sir Jonathan Bate

Celebrating Earth Month, the ASU Book Group’s April 2027 selection is the nonfiction history book, “The Garden: Our Four-Thousand-Year Quest for Paradise” by literary scholar Jonathan Bate, ASU Regents Professor of English and environmental humanities (The College/College of Global Futures).

The book group is open to all in the ASU community and meets monthly from noon to 1 p.m. in Hayden Library on the ASU Tempe campus as well as online. Please register to attend.

Haven't read the book? Come anyway! Authors are always present.

Synopsis

“The Garden” is a globe-spanning, never-before-told epic history of the garden — from antiquity to present. Avid gardener and literary historian Jonathan Bate traces our fascination with gardens across four millennia and explores their enduring influence on art, literature, philosophy, politics, and religion, from the gardens of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to the pleasure gardens of Versailles and public green spaces like Central Park. Along the way, Bate offers practical botanical insights: Why have certain rose growers preferred old varieties over new? What makes a weed a weed? And how do certain plants serve essential roles in maintaining a garden’s health?

Bate unearths an alternate human history, and reminds us that to cultivate a garden is to practice care: for the earth, for others, and for the fragile beauty that sustains us.

The book will be available at local U.S. bookstores in February 2027.

About the book group

The ASU Book Group meetings and selections for 2026-2027 are:

• Sep. 24 - “MeXicana Roots and Routes” edited by Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez and Anita Huizar-Hernández
• Oct. 22 - “A Harvest of Furies” by Hayden Casey
• Nov. 18 - Channeling Emily Dickinson with Rosemarie Dombrowski
• Feb. 25 - "Tumbleweed Underworld" by Eduardo Pagán
• Mar. 25 - “Eve” by B.K. O'Connor
• Apr. 15 - “The Garden” by Sir Jonathan Bate

The ASU Book Group is sponsored as a community outreach initiative and hosted in partnership between the Department of English and ASU Library.