{"product_id":"the-road-to-le-tholonet-a-french-garden-journey","title":"The Road To Le Tholonet: A French garden journey","description":"This is not a book about French Gardens. It is the story of a man travelling round France visiting a few selected French gardens on the way. Owners  intrigues  affairs  marriages  feuds  thwarted ambitions and desires  the largely unnamed ordinary gardeners  wars  plots and natural disasters run through every garden older than a generation or two and fill every corner of the grander historical ones. Families marry. Gardeners are poached. Political allegiances forged and shattered. The human trail crosses from garden to garden. They sit in their surrounding landscape  not as isolated islands but attached umbilically to it  sharing the geology  the weather  food  climate  local folklore  accent and cultural identity. Wines must be drunk and food tasted. Recipes found and compared. The perfect tarte-tartin pursued. None of these things can be ignored or separated from the shape and size of parterre  fountain  herbaceous border or pottager.  So this is a book filled with stories and information  some of it about French gardens and gardening  but most of it about what makes France unlike anywhere else. From historical gardens like Versailles Vaux le Vicomte and Courances to the kitchen gardens of the Michelin chef Alain Passard. There are grand potagers like Villandry and La Prieure DOrsan and allotments and back gardens spotted on the way. Monty celebrates the obvious French associations of food and wine and finds gardens dedicated to vegetables  herbs and fruit. It is a book that any visitor to France  whether gardeners or not  will want to read both as a guide and an inspiration. It is a portal to get under the French cultural skin and to understand the country  in all its huge variety and disparity  a little better.","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44614054543413,"sku":"ByrdShop_1471114570","price":90.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/ByrdShop_1471114570_c5aabf50-5fea-4b50-964a-ff8d9ca757f7.jpg?v=1768027383","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-road-to-le-tholonet-a-french-garden-journey","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}