George Orwell’s books have been read by millions and hailed as essential texts for combating autocracy. It’s not easy to find new angles on such a prominent figure, but Rebecca Solnit has done just that. That she succeeds in impressive fashion will surprise no one who’s familiar with the work of the polymathic San Franciscan.

In “Orwell’s Roses,” a bracing mix of biography, history, journalism and criticism, Solnit uses the English writer’s little-known love of gardening as fuel for inspired reflections on his work, hobbies, politics and nature. Readers who appreciate beauty or wisdom — anyone who enjoys books, basically — will find plenty to like in these pages.

Solnit’s many books include “Infinite City,” an ingenious portrait of San Francisco made up of maps, illustrations and essays. Her work embodies a quality that she has long admired in Orwell’s books: the capacity, in nonfiction titles like “Homage to Catalonia” — his 1938 account of the Spanish Civil War, during which he was shot — “to make room for the small and subjective inside something big and historic,” as she puts it. She cites part of Orwell’s 1946 essay “Why I Write” — “I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information” — as a personal “credo.”

几年前，Solnit告诉了一位关于Orwell关于他在英格兰瓦莱顿山上种植的玫瑰的奥尔韦尔文章。鲜花仍然存在吗？Solnit在物业的颗粒状在线形象与颗粒状在线形象不满意，决定亲自探索。

索尔尼特发现了一些玫瑰,Wallington though it’s not certain Orwell planted them. It’s a ho-hum result, perhaps inspiring her to think even harder about fleeting beauty and engagement with nature. “In an age of lies and illusions” — this, I think, applies to Orwell’s era and our own — gardens bring us closer to “the processes of growth and the passage of time, the rules of physics, meteorology, hydrology, and biology, and the realms of the senses,” she writes.

当Orwell于1936年种了他的玫瑰时，他在近年发表了“前往Wigan Pier的道路”。对于Solnit而言，他的非专业书挖掘和贫困是关于童工，污染和伦敦瘫痪的跨情绪烟雾的广泛章节的跳跃点，以及奥威尔的健康状况不佳。她写道，污染的空气肯定是“促进他肺部的深处和早期死亡”，她写道。

In Orwell’s 1935 novel “A Clergyman’s Daughter,” a character stops to look at a wild rose amid dense weeds. This passage, Solnit writes, reminds us that Orwell “believe[d] devoutly in moments of delight, even rapture.” Though she feels the same, Solnit notes that there’s now a troubling dichotomy to our relationship with roses. To illustrate this point, she visits Colombia, a place not typically associated with Orwell but one that’s a hub of the 21st century flower market.

Meeting Americans’ demand for millions of roses every year, airliners teeming with flowers make regular Bogota-to-Miami trips, burning carbon “high over the Caribbean.” Like Orwell’s miners, Colombian rose workers log long hours for little money. One tells Solnit that her employers’ “have ruined the water, the animals, the flora, the air, everything!”

Though Orwell’s every word had been scrutinized by the time Solnit began this project, her stellar book shows us that an original thinker can make any subject fresh.

Orwell’s Roses
By Rebecca Solnit
(Viking, 320 pages, $28)

Author events

The Green Arcade presents Rebecca Solnit in conversation with Adam Hochschild:Live-stream and in person. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 19. Presale: $28, with book and one admission. $38, with book and admission for two. $10 tickets at the door, depending on availability. Vaccination and masks required. McRoskey Mattress Co., third-floor loft, 1687 Market St., San Francisco. Live-streamed free on Green Arcade YouTube channel.www.thegreenarcade.com