The English Rose

lovely little book ,nice pictures,

This little book only cost me pennies and I had a fair idea of what to expect but, even so, one cannot gloss over the fact that this is essentially a rose catalogue in hard-cover book form. I have been buying Austin roses for my garden since 2004, and have a good collection of their catalogues, so I was already familiar with the gorgeous photos (in fact, I have taken some pretty spectacular pictures myself), however, if you don't have a garden or if you simply love to look at exquisitely photographed roses, this small volume is full of them. After a short introduction, explaining how the class of English Roses came into being, there is a detailed description and a close-up picture of each variety (about seventy) and, at the end, a short list of world-wide suppliers.Despite the quality of the photographs, I have rated this booklet only 3 stars because, as a coffee table book it is too small and underwhelming and, as a shopping guide, its practical value is very limited. Austin introduces at least four new varieties each year and often these are improved versions of existing ones which are then dropped from commerce. The photos are lovely, but there are much better rose books around. My current favourite is Botanica's Roses: The Encyclopedia of Roses