![]() ![]() His botanical-trading career began as a teenage scoundrel in London, stealing cuttings from real-life botanist Sir Joseph Banks. Alma's father, Henry, is the richest man in Philadelphia. Her mother, Beatrice, is an uncompromising Dutch botanist ever shadowed by her personal maid, Hanneke de Groot. ![]() But her true love, the study of moss, ultimately triumphs, leading her to accidentally discover her own version of the theory of evolution.īehind Alma's genius and her devotion to plants are her marvellously eccentric parents. Alma's journey takes her to the wilds of Tahiti in search of her lost husband, the beguiling and mysterious Ambrose Pike. The gentle and at times peculiar plot meanders through the life of a brilliant botanist, Alma Whittaker, born in Philadelphia in 1800. Published in 2013, it was tarnished by the Eat Pray Love brush for many of us and widely overlooked, but it turned out to be one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. At the beginning of this year, my book club selected Gilbert's sixth book – a novel called The Signature of All Things – for the year's reading list. ![]() I'm not a big fan of the "women's self-discovery" genre, so needless to say I have never read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love nor seen the film. ![]()
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