I have given up!
I try to be diligent with my books – read one and write a review – but my routine was broken and I have failed to recover. Earlier in the year my laptop went on the blink for about a week so there was reading time but no facility to write the reviews.
Of course, in the meantime, more and more books have arrived and the temptation to read the new is always greater than the duty to review the old. Who has not been tempted by the latest arrival, the latest divinely smelling, fresh off the press and still crispy book?
To make amends, to some degree, I have put those books, enjoyed over the week of laptop absence, into one review and hope you will find one which will tempt you to enjoy the pleasure of a good book. (pssst….I have put them in order of my enjoyment of them!)
This was the perfect book for the Christmas stocking – small, compact and a little treasure. It is a collection of Tim Richardson’s columns, articles, essays and reviews and they are, first and foremost, entertaining but also informative and thought provoking. Tim Richardon’s style is witty, insightful, provocative and, above all, enjoyable and fun to read. I loved it! Loved it! [You Should Have Been Here Last Week, Tim Richardson, Pimpernel Press, 2016, Hardback, 208pp, £16.99, ISBN: 9781910258354]
Michelle Obama brought media attention to the gardens of the White House with her vegetable garden but she was not the first resident to make an impact on the eighteen acres around the President’s residence. Martha McDowell recounts the contributions – or lack of them – of the many residents over the past centuries. The beautiful Rose Garden of the Kennedys will be well known but there are many, many more interesting stories: Eisenhower’s putting green, Lincoln’s goats, Amy Carter’s tree house, Gerald Ford’s swimming pool, George H. W. Bush’s horseshoe pit and Bill Clinton’s jogging track among them. Kings and Queens walked these grounds but Presidents and their families shaped them – in most interesting ways. A very well researched, well written and well presented book – very enjoyable! [All the Presidents’ Gardens, Marta McDowell, Timber Press, 2016, Hardback, 336pp, £20, ISBN: 9781604695892]
Stephen Anderton presents essays on 40 gardeners over a time spread of 500 years though with a strong leaning to those of the 20th century. Rather than a chronological sequence the gardeners are organised thematically: “Gardens of Ideas/Straight Lines /Curves/Plantsmanship” and includes Sir Roy Strong, Lancelot Brown, Russell Page, Graham Stuart Thomas, Christopher Lloyd, Beth Chatto and Piet Oudolf among others – something for everybody! The essays are biographical rather than critical and, given Stephen Anderton’s pleasant style, are light, enjoyable and informative. I found this a very informative and enjoyable read; an easy-going read, pleasant and unchallenging, sure to appeal to all. [Lives of the Great Gardeners, Stephen Anderton, Thames & Hudson, 2016, Hb, 304pp, £24.95 ISBN: 9780500518564]
Did Shakespeare ever garden at New Place? Probably not, but that small fact has not stopped generations celebrating his garden at Stratford on Avon – and it has recently been completely renovated with the installation of an Elizabethan style box parterre! There are no plans which show that such a garden existed at New Place but it is supposed that it is the style of garden he would have had if he had a garden! (Truth and accuracy, obviously, will never get in the way of a good money-generating tourist attraction!) Despite my attitude to this fallacy of garden recreation I enjoyed this book enormously for Sir Roy Strong explores all these matters in a wonderfully insightful and informed manner and considers them of great gardening significance for, as he writes, “this recreated Elizabethan garden is not just sentimental curiosity but a milestone in the emergence of garden history and recreation,”and he describes the garden as “the first major public attempt in England to accurately recreate a garden of another age.” An excellent read! Truly enjoyable! [The Quest for Shakespeare’s Garden, Sir Roy Strong, Thames &Hudson, Hb, 112pp, £14.95, ISBN: 9780500252246]
This book is not about growing carnations but about the social and cultural history of a plant which has delighted people for centuries. The carnation challenged the tulip as the florist’s favourite and was as popular a hobby plant in its era as the auricula. Time after time the author presents fascinating associations and facts about the carnation that makes this book a most enjoyable read. Very enjoyable! This is one of a series of such books, each on a different genus, and each dealing with the social and cultural aspects of the plant rather than its role in the garden. A nice series! [Carnation, Twigs Way, Reaktion Books, 2016, Hb, 224pp, £16, ISBN: 9781780236346]
There are five delicious books waiting for me to read. I can now go ahead and read these without the nagging in the back of my mind that I should first have reviewed those read previously! It has been a spring cleaning of sorts!
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