In Which I Make a Plan to Keep My Spirits Up

My Happy Pile

This past year I have been disappointed in my reading. I spent way too much time perusing 'stuff' online leaving my once robust reading routine in tatters.

On the upside, I did attend many author events in 2016 - more than I wrote about - and am grateful to my library for inviting so many outstanding writers to speak here. At least I brushed against some fine writing. 

I rarely seek out new books anymore although I do occasionally stumble across one that piques my interest.  I am especially put off by book reviews that use words such as 'sweeping', 'saga', 'multi-generational', 'dark', 'violent', 'tragic', 'downfall', or 'dystopian'. And it seems as if most reviews do. 

Sigh. I do believe I am in a grand reading funk.

Maybe this is what "a certain age" looks like. I long for the comfort of a book I know is well written, entertaining, and if it makes me laugh all the better. 

To combat my despair - not only about my reading but other things as well - I made a plan to read books that will Keep My Spirits Up. (OK, I know it should be Keep Up My Spirits but it sounds better with the preposition at the end.)

So, to make it easy to grab one, I have created My Happy Pile of books that I know will make my spirits soar:

Merry Hall trilogy by Beverley Nichols - One cannot be blue when in the company of Mr. Nichols, his cats, and his house and garden restoration schemes.

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson - A book I bought when it was first published but has languished on the shelf. Mr. Bryson is guaranteed to make me laugh out loud.

Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne - What could be more pleasant than spending time in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield - I feel my spirits brightening just thinking about this delightful book.

My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber - Things that go bump in the night are sure to bring on a smile or two.

Endangered Pleasures by Barbara Holland - A refreshing defense of naps, bacon, martinis, and other indulgences.

Simple Pleasures - British writers look at 'the little things that make life worth living' - published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Of course there will be the gentle mystery or comic crime caper at bedtime.

In case my choices leave you cold, I have received responses to my call to bloggers and commenters with suggestions for their own Happy Pile and will be putting them together for you next week. 

Let's all hang tight and Keep Our Spirits Up.

Oh, Joy! Another Book by Beverley Nichols

The colorful dust jacket from The Gift of a Garden. 

Don't worry - I didn't splay the book open; this is the jacket only.

I adore Beverley Nichols, the British author who writes so humorously about gardens, flowers, homes, cats, villages and the eccentric characters he meets. 

The trilogy about his efforts to restore Merry Hall, his Georgian home and its gardens that he owned in post-war England, are just about my favorite books. I own all three (Merry Hall, Laughter on the Stairs, and Sunlight on the Lawn) and often pick up one volume just to read a paragraph or two. Any page will do with Mr. Nichols as his writing is so delightful. I have written about him many times here at Belle, Book, and Candle.

I don't often come across his books, but yesterday I discovered yet another of his delights. The Gift of a Garden or Some Flowers Remembered was on the sale table at the library. I eagerly snatched it up and paid the overwhelming price of one dollar for it!

This is actually a condensation by Mr. Nichols of three of his gardening books starting with Down the Garden Path (which I have read in its entirety and wrote about here and here), moving on to A Thatched Roof, and ending with A Village in a Valley. All tales of his first garden in 1930s England and its cottage. With Mr. Nichols the garden always comes first.

This volume was published in 1972 and has a lengthy forward by the author written Forty Years On. It still has its colorful dust jacket which is amazing as in its previous life - before I got hold of it - it was a book from the collection of the public library in a small town about 30 miles from here. It is a farming community so maybe the inhabitants weren't too interested in reading about growing flowers in Great Britain. All the better for me!

I shall enjoy tripping about the garden again with one of my favorite authors. 

First Lines

"Elmer Gantry was drunk. He was eloquently drunk, lovingly and pugnaciously drunk."

Sinclair Lewis: Elmer Gantry (1926)

Picture: AP

There is a fun photo feast in the online edition of the UK newspaper The Telegraph. Here, according to culture editor Martin Chilton, are thirty of the great opening lines in literature. Some familiar, some not. The best part is seeing the wonderful photos of the authors paired with the covers of their books.

Of course there are Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice) and Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities), but also Jean Rhys (The Wide Sargasso Sea) and Ken Kesey (One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest).  I was especially taken with the above black and white photograph of Sinclair Lewis sitting at his typewriter dressed in a suit and tie. I guess the photo was not taken on Casual Friday.

Therefore, not to be outdone by The Telegraph, here is a sampling of first lines from books on my own shelves:

"Those privileged to be present at a family festival of the Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive sight -- an upper middle-class family in full plumage."
    ----The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

"I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of Ngong Hills."
    ----Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch."
    ----Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck

"On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition and Astrology."
    ----The Once and Future King by T.H. White

"Had one been a Prime Minister there would be every reason for talking of one's first tooth and devoting a chapter or two to its effect upon the history of our times."
    ----Twenty-five by Beverley Nichols

"There were several promising-looking letters in the pile laid on Mrs. James Kane's virgin breakfast-plate on Monday morning, but having sorted all the envelopes with the air of one expectant of discovering treasure-trove, she extracted two addressed to her in hands indicative of either illiteracy or of extreme youth."
    ----Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer

What first lines are lurking on your shelves?

Rocks, Goldfish, and Grapes

Goldfish pond

You might be wondering if I will ever stop swooning over Beverley Nichols. Well, probably not soon.

So far in Down the Garden Path, Mr. Nichols's adventure in the garden of his thatched cottage in Allways, England, I have learned how to build a rockery and what plants to use to create cascades of color. And, if I ever feel up to having a pond dug in my yard, I know just how to fill it with twelve goldfish that will create little black fish and soon I will have an entire pool shimmering with gold. 

Not that I am apt to add either rocks or fish to my garden, but the knowledge of how to do both creates nice tidbits of conversation.

Mr. Nichols's neighbors in this undertaking are not quite as friendly and kind as the ones he inherited with Merry Hall. Most of them seem to irritate him which makes for some dazzling dialogue and internal harrumphing. 

I have even gotten to meet his parents. His father was apparently quite a knowledgeable gardener and has ample opportunities to pass on bits of fatherly wisdom to his more novice son. It was his father who discovered the grape vine almost smothered by briers, jasmine, and ivy. Within a year, Mr. Nichols was enjoying luscious purple grapes from the rescued vine. 

Another totally unexpected garden delight.

Down the Garden Path

Beverley Nichols's garden
in Allways, Huntingdonshire, England

Oh lovely. More Beverley Nichols with Down the Garden Path which was written 20 years before he bought Merry Hall and wrote about restoring that Georgian house and its gardens. 

Now I am transported to 1930s England to a small village which Mr. Nichols calls Allways. He has just purchased - pretty much sight unseen - a thatched cottage on a country lane. He once visited the cottage and remembered the gardens as bursting with blossoms. Not so now. Here is how he describes the garden upon his arrival:

I stepped through the window. Stopped dead. Blinked...Looked again...and the spirit seemed to die within me.

It was a scene of utter desolation. True, it was a cold evening in late March, and the shadows were falling. No garden can be expected to look its best in such circumstances. But this garden did not look like a garden at all. There was not even a sense of order about it. All design was lacking. Even in the grimmest winter days a garden can give an appearance of discipline, and a certain amount of life and colour, no matter how wild the winds nor dark the skies. But this garden was like a rubbish heap.

Oh dear. Mr. Nichols does have his work cut out for him. How wonderful for me. I get to dig about in the garden with him without getting my fingernails dirty. 

Ten Things I Adore About Beverley Nichols

Beverley Nichols in the garden of Merry Hall
with its 'peculiar crane' at the edge of the pool

Here are ten things I adore about Beverley Nichols:

1. He uses great verbs. On one page alone you have twist, swing, totter, delve, dream, stagger, trip, suffocate, lurk, and devote. 

2. He uses unbiased gender pronouns - he and she or him and her instead of just the male pronoun. (And this was in the '50s.) For example...When a visitor first sees my garden, he or she breathes a sigh of serenity. 

3. He writes brilliant dialogue.

4. There is always something to learn from Mr. Nichols whether it is about music, myths, or mice. His diversions and asides are just as witty and scintillating as the main story.

5. He knows his cats. And he loves them, as well as all animals. He can't even stand to swat a bee on a windowsill but instead catches it in a matchbox and releases it back into the garden.

6. He quickly captures the essence of his neighbors and friends - Bob with the his gold pocket chain and charms that he jingles when upset; Marius with his knowledge of just about everything, Our Rose with her reckless and energetic flower arrangements; Miss Emily with her practical nature which often clashes with Our Rose's more ethereal personality; and Miss Mint whose brutal childhood has made her quite timid and yet is such a kind person and everyone loves her. 

7. In Sunlight on the Lawn, he provides instructions for making a lavender fan with fresh lavender stalks, starched muslin, and ribbon. 

8. When it comes to beauty in house or garden, expense be damned. 

9. I actually love the fact that he employs Gaskin, his "Jeeves", and Ted, a male secretary. I wish I had such helpmates.

10. He has generously chosen William McLaren, a fine, talented Scottish gentleman, to illustrate the Merry Hall trilogy. This makes the books not only a delight to read but a joy to look at. 

An Exquisite Piece of Jewelry

Here is a 'jewel' from Beverley Nichols's Laughter on the Stairs tucked into a chapter on bird song:

The first time I found a jay's feather, which is made of turquoise blue silk embroidered with grey and black pearls, it had alighted on a clump of deep blue Canterbury bells. It was early morning; the dew was still heavy; and the tiny drops sparkled over the blue of the feather and the blue of the petals. The effect was of some exquisite piece of jeweller's work, dropped overnight by an elegant but absent-minded fairy.

Doesn't that just make you swoon?

I am now finished with Laughter and am scooting through the final book in the trilogy, Sunlight on the Lawn. It is now seven years since Mr. Nichols moved into Merry Hall. Oldfield the aged gardener has retired, the house is pretty well furnished, and the gardens complete. Well, complete until Mr. Nichols goes on a quest for a 'nice balustrade'. Who knew that the purchase of the N.B. (as he refers to the sixty feet of stone) would turn into a Folie de Grandeur. Ah, but there in lies the tale.

A Peek Inside Merry Hall

The end papers of Laughter on the Stairs
featuring the interior of Merry Hall
as drawn by William McLaren 

Where Merry Hall is mostly about the creation of the gardens of the Georgian house bought by author Beverley Nichols after World War II, the second in the trilogy, Laughter on the Stairs, gives a glimpse into Merry Hall itself. 

This book records Mr. Nichols's quarrel with a stained glass window left by the previous owner, his installation of a window grill in the music room cupboard, the purchase of art, and the delivery of four walnut chairs designed and crafted in 1695 by a gentleman named Daniel Marot. It is these chairs, the gift from a friend, that Mr. Nichols sets as the standard for all the other furniture he purchases for the house.

He writes:

The vow was that somehow or other, cost what it may, I would try to live up to those chairs. To try to 'live up to' anything beautiful, whether it is a Greek vase or a slow movement by Mozart, is a most worthy and moral aim; if beauty is in your head, if even a fragment of perfection abides in you, it acts as a standard to which you may constantly refer, even if the reference is subconscious. The lines of the vase, the lines of the music -- they are a corrective to excess.

We also get to meet up again with Miss Emily, Our Rose, and the mysterious and erudite Marius and are introduced to Miss Mint and Erica, another author and faux gypsy. Everyone likes Miss Mint; Erica, on the other hand, is thought to be quite a pain. And, deservedly so.

Mr. Nichols has great fun walking these characters, along with Gaskin his manservant and Oldfield the aged gardener, in and out of the gardens and the rooms of Merry Hall and their exploits, conversations, and opinions sparkle on the page. 

British Book Loot

I scored some big time British books today. First, I had lunch with a friend (and a big fan of Beverley Nichols) and she brought me her copy of  his Down the Garden Path which was first published in 1932, long before Merry Hall was even a gleam in his eye.

This is another garden creation story and one that I am not sure I have read. His books are slowly coming back into print (Yea! This one has a publishing date of 2005.), but it wouldn't matter if I had read it eight times before as I know I will be reeling along whatever path he chooses to go down.

Also, in the library's mystery section, there stacked all by themselves on a shelf were three crime thrillers by an author totally unknown to me:  Kyril Bonfiglioli. I love the titles: Don't Point That Thing at Me; After You With the Pistol; and, Something Nasty in the Woodshed (shades of Cold Comfort Farm, yes?).

According to the jacket blurb, this trilogy was a cult classic in Britain in the 1970s and features the Honorable Charlie Mortdecai, a "degenerate aristocrat, amoral art dealer, seasoned epicurean, unwilling assassin, and acknowledged coward."

I checked out all three as I was afraid I would love the first and then would have to wait to get my hands on the second and third books. I hope I am not to be disappointed.

Next Up: Laughter on the Stairs

I have been merrily tripping along with Beverley Nichols at Merry Hall and now I am ready to move on to the next book about his life wrangling flowers, trees, cats and visitors -- Laughter on the Stairs.

I have long been quite enchanted with Mr. Nichols. He was a war correspondent, gardener, and author. In addition to his gardening books he wrote five mysteries, six novels, six plays, two books on cats, and six, yes count them, six, autobiographies. He penned others as well including political writings, children's books, and a treatise on the marriage of W. Somerset Maugham.

How did Mr. Nichols ever find time to mess about in the garden?

His first autobiography, Twenty-Five (Being a Young Man's Recollections of His Elders and Betters), was published in 1926 when he was a mere twenty-eight years old. Even at that age he had lived quite a bit and had met some stellar people in his travels. I happen to own a copy of the book. I found it in 2002 in a little book shop,  Rees & O'Neill, 27 Cecil Court, off Charing Cross Road. I paid two pounds for it. 

In Merry Hall he writes a bit about his life as a journalist and comments about having to write to pay for the next extravagance for his garden and house.  I love that even when his (male) secretary hints that funds are running a bit low, Mr. Nichols throws caution to the wind in order to continue on with his next elegant plan.

I could practically quote the entire book; it is that entertaining. But then you must discover the delightful Mr. Nichols for yourself. 

Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols

Merry Hall
home of Beverley Nichols

I had forgotten I was going to re-read Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols for my British Month. I thought of it as I was drifting off to sleep last night and awoke this morning looking forward to visiting with Mr. Nichols and reveling in his trials and tribulations in restoring the Georgian manor house and its wreck of a garden about an hour's journey outside London.

The action all takes place after WWII in 1946. Mr. Nichols was 45 years old at the time. After a long search, Merry Hall was just what he was looking for.  Not only did he buy the house, he inherited its gardener Oldfield who had been working on the property for 40-some years.

Mr. Nichols had just returned to London after doing a job in India. He knew that if he didn't get back to a garden he would die. He writes:

You have to be a gardener to understand that the expression of such a feeling is not a mere figure of speech; it is, quite literally, a matter of life or death. I believe that if it were possible to take what might roughly be described as a 'psychic photograph' of a gardener, you would find that there would be ghostly tendrils growing from the tips of his fingers, and shadowy roots about his feet, and that there would be a pattern of ectoplasmic lines that linked him in the natural rhythm with the curve and sway of the branches about him. And I believe that if this same picture were taken when he was removed from his natural environment, it would be the picture of a dying man - the frail tendrils and roots would be starved and stunted, the rhythm broken. 'Green fingers' is not only a flash of poetry; it is a fact in physiology.

Ah. Well, I don't have any phantom tendrils or roots, but I do like reading about those who do. Especially Mr. Nichols whose way with words and a spade are all too entertaining.

Oh, To Be In England

Queen Elizabeth II

I have hoisted the book London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd back onto its place on the shelf. I am afraid that I will have to postpone starting such a tome until I can purchase a reading stand. It is much too heavy to hold.

But, I am still going to celebrate, in my own way, the Queen's Jubilee during September. I have quite a royal To Be Read list going.

My neighbor lent me a copy of Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island. As a longtime Anglophile, I look forward to chuckling over his observations of what makes Britain so very British.

I also have Mrs. P's Journey by Sarah Hartley that I bought in Stanford's in London a decade ago and have never read.  It is the story of Phyllis Pearsall who created the A-Zed map of London's streets.

I plan to linger in the gardens of Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols. This book is the first in a trilogy (I have them all) about his efforts to restore a Georgian house and its gardens after WWII. I have read this one before and can hardly wait to accompany Mr. Nichols down the garden path.

Of course, there are also all those lovely mysteries by Agatha Christie. I am reading one now on my Nook - A Pocket Full of Rye.

I envision many a lovely September afternoon sipping tea and reading about The Emerald Isle.

Long live the Queen.

Be My Valentine, Beverley Nichols

As this is Valentine's Day and I got a 14-percent-off-your-total-order offer from Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon, I decided to treat myself to something better than chocolate: three books.

Although you would never catch me touching dirt, I do love reading books about people who do. And although I have read all three of Beverley Nichols's books regaling the reader with his efforts to restore his Georgian manor house and its gardens, I wanted them for my own. Powell's had them all, in hardcover. Two used and one new. So without ever leaving my chair, I have set in motion the order fillers at Powell's and soon the trilogy will be here: Merry Hall, Laughter on the Stairs, and Sunshine on the Lawn.

Just in time for Spring.