Murder by Death

While this is a beautifully constructed, high-quality book that was a joy to hold and look at, it was ultimately disappointing.  I suppose strictly speaking, it does what it sets out to do: share a history of gardening through 50 garden tools that the RHS has deemed pivotal to modern gardening.  But I should have devoured this and instead I struggled to stay focussed.  The layout is really attractive, and break-out boxes had interesting and useful tips about choosing, using or caring for specific tools, but the writing would have benefitted from stronger editing.  The narratives lacked anything pulling them together and they often felt rambling and disjointed.  More often than not I was skimming and left wanting more.