In which a new book arrives

Always a red-letter day when a book shows up in my mailbox. Today, Four Hedges: A Gardener's Chronicle (1935) arrived from the kind folks at Luminaria Books. The book is much larger than I expected, and it is in perfect condition. It was carefully and neatly wrapped in brown paper with 'Fragile' marked on both sides of the package. Aren't all books fragile?

The book covers a year in the author's garden in Monks Risborough in the Chiltern Hills of England. Simon at Stuck in a Book recently reviewed it and it immediately appealed to me. I ordered it that day. Four Hedges also contains 80 engravings or woodcuts by its author, Clare Leighton. 

The chronicle is broken down month by month starting with April, so I am not too far behind.

Here is how it begins:
Ours is an ordinary garden. It is perched on a slope of the Chiltern Hills, exposed to every wind that blows. Its soil is chalk; its flower beds are pale grey. Dig into it just one spit, and you reach, as it were a solid cement foundation. One might be hacking at the white cliffs of Dover. Only when it is wet from heavy rain does our soil darken and look normal. It is a new garden. In it there are none of the great trees that spread their shade over stretches of lawn, none of the mellow, age-silvered bricks that shelter a walled-in fruit garden, not a hint of a crazy paving patterned with moss, or a sundial with edges blunted by time. 

In other words, a blank slate. Lots to do, oh, lots to do.

I love reading personal experiences about gardens and gardening although you won't ever find me digging in the dirt. I wonder if Ms. Leighton and Beverley Nichols, another great gardener, author, and a favorite of mine, were acquainted?

Here is a close-up of the book's amusing endpapers. 

Grasshoppers galore.

Browsing the Book Blog Bookshelves

I am running behind myself and have yet to catch up. I spent the morning browsing what some of my favorite readers have been reading this past week (as I have not had a moment to read anything myself!) Here are some books that caught my eye. Click on the links to see the original posts. Thanks to you all for letting me share your picks!

Cornflower wrote about Meeting the English (2013) by Kate Clanchy. This is a tale of Struan Robertson, a fellow from a small Scottish town who is hired to tend to Phillip Prys, a Welsh writer who has had a stroke and whose family doesn't care to care for him. Robertson is thrown into an oddball family not to mention a country where "they do things differently." It all takes place in 1989 in Hampstead. Cornflower writes that it is a well-written, funny, comedy of manners. (I don't think it is available yet in the U.S. but maybe I will be caught up with my other reading by the time it hits our shores.)

Shelf Love introduced me to K.C. Constantine and his series of mysteries the second of which is The Man Who Liked to Look at Himself (1973). The action all takes place in Rocksburg, Penn-sylvania and stars police chief Mario Balzic. Nothing quirky here. Just good, honest police work solves the crime. There are 16 books in this series and Constantine is another mystery writer to add to my list. 

Captive Reader reminded me that last week was Barbara Pym Reading Week (which I totally missed) and posted a delightful picture from the cover of the 1990s edition of Quartet in Autumn.

Stuck in a Book has returned to nature with Four Hedges (1935) by Claire Leighton which not only is a paean to gardens with their attendant weeds and wildlife, but also is illustrated with the author's woodcuts. A delightful summer read and I just ordered a used copy from Luminaria Books.

As I recently returned from a jaunt to the Midwest, I was happy to see a tribute to that part of the country on mirabile dictu and this entry featuring John Mellencamp who sings about small town life and disappearing family farms. This music video, "Rain on the Scarecrow," is an appropriate one considering all the storms that part of the country has been suffering through lately.

And finally, A Work in Progress informs me that June is International Crime Month and features a wonderful pile of mysteries just waiting to be investigated. Also noted is The New Yorker's summer fiction edition entitled "Crimes and Misdemeanors" which features short stories and true crime pieces.  Looks to be just the magazine to carry with me on a summer picnic.