Earthly Joys: The Joy of a Damn Good Book

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	• Earthly Joys: A Novel Philippa Gregory Touchstone, 2005 - 528 pages average customer review:based on 38 reviews view larger image
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I loved this book

I am a first time reader of Phillipa Gregory who was recommended by Homestead.com. I loved Earthly Joys and will be reading the sequel as soon as I get it. I bought it to give to my horticulturist cousin but decided to read it first. I'm sure is going to enjoy it too. There is some racey scenes that's for sure but it made the book very interesting.

Lucky find

I stumbled across this book in a thrift shop and thought it looked mildly interesting. I had never heard of the author before or read any of her other books but figured it must be worth at least the quarter they were asking. I was drawn in immediately and could not stop thinking about the story even when I had to put it down. I really enjoyed her rich descriptions of the time period and the characters and had no trouble appreciating her descriptions of the gardening of Tradescant even though I know nothing about the skill myself. The sexuality in the book did not put me off either, as it seems to have done to so many others. It is just a small part of the volume anyway.
As soon as I finished this book I immediately searched for and purchased more of her works, and am currently in the middle of "The Other Boleyn Girl", which is just as outstanding. A thoroughly fresh, interesting, engrossing, entertaining author.

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Earthly Joys

Great story and beautifully told.Can't wait for the follow-up book to arrive, Superb condition and arrive very quickly.GREAT service

Earthly Joys: The Joy of a Damn Good Book

This book is set in England during the Stuart period after the death of Elizabeth I. The main character, John Tradescant, is a royal gardner, with old time values of fealty toward one's lord. It's another great Gregory novel. Although not always sympathetic, Gregory's characters are real. I particularly like how her female characters are drawn, living, as they do, in a most misogynistic era.

Beautifully penned, dramatic imagery, "Earthly Joys" is a must read. Heck, don't stop with those blasted Tudors, keep going!

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

"Whether he is nurturing a single rare seedling into a blossoming tree or planning acres of exquisitely conceived royal gardens, John Tradescant's fame and skill as a gardener are unsurpassed in seventeenth-century England. But it is Tradescant's clear-sighted honesty and loyalty that make him an invaluable servant, and in his role as informal confidant during garden strolls with Sir Robert Cecil, adviser to King James I, he witnesses the making of history, from the Gunpowder Plot to the accession of King Charles I and the growing animosity between Parliament and court. Tradescant's talents soon come to the attention of the most powerful man in the country, the irresistible Duke of Buckingham, the lover of King Charles I. Tradescant has always been faithful to his masters, but Buckingham is unlike any he has ever known: flamboyant, outrageously charming, and utterly reckless. Every certainty upon which Tradescant has based his life -- his love of his wife and children, his passion for his work, his loyalty to his country -- is shattered as he follows Buckingham to court, to war, and to the forbidden territories of human love. From the details of garden design and innovation to the politics of a growing revolution which was to kill a king and turn a world upside down, Philippa Gregory once again makes history come alive through the people whose passions shaped that world. "

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