| | Novels and poems with gardening themes. Detail from "Woman Reading in a Garden", by Mary Cassat. OK, so it's got nothing to do with Tarzan, but who cares! |
Can't get enough of the garden theme? Had enough of the truth? Escape to the world of horticultural fiction.
There is a wealth of garden-related literature out there, novels and poems to entertain the most horny-handed sons and daughters of the soil.
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One of the all-time great children's classics. When spoilt nasty Mary Lennox's parents die in India she is sent to Yorkshire. Lonely and unpleasant, one day she discovers a hidden door to a secret garden.
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Savannah, Georgia: In the early morning hourse of 2nd May, 1981 a murder which rips open the socially conservative facade of the American South and exposes its sleazy, sexual innards.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil tracks the real-life case which became one of America's most celebrated murder trials. But the murder and trial form only part of the book, which revolves around the character of the town of Savannah, its inhabitants and its culture.
The book is beautifully observed, a riveting read. "The Book", as it is known in Savannah, put the town and its Historic District firmly on the tourist trail.
What does it have to do with gardens and gardening? Nothing really, other than its title. But it's a wonderful book!
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Atmospheric wartime story, kicking off with five cousins gathered in Cornwall for a final summer holiday together with their aunt. Mary Wesley is a hero to wrinklies everywhere, having written her first novel at the age of seventy.
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From Library Journal. This is a Cinderella story that says even if you're 40
with three messy kids, you can find happiness with a millionaire Prince
Charming. Althea Farraday, a passionate gardener, meets Patrick Donahue, a
lovely man who is involved with very young and beautiful Topaz. He also owns
a boarded-up mansion with a large greenhouse. Althea's adventures as she
seeks a new place to live, a greenhouse, and a career make for a delightful
romp.
Recommended by reader Nicole Nelson.
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From Publishers Weekly. Evocative, if occasionally clunky, Humphreys's third novel (following Afterimage) is the story of an Englishwoman's search for her place in aworld permeated by war.
The narrator, 35-year-old Gwen Davis, is ahorticulturist who flees bombed-out WWII London to manage a team of "landgirls"-women who grow vegetables as part of the war effort-at a country estate. She struggles to manage her wayward charges, who are more interested in the Canadian soldiers billeted in the main house than in cultivating potatoes, and writes letters in her head to her idol Virginia Woolf, whose recent death has left her feeling bereft. She also tries to seduce the world-weary, hard-drinking Captain Raley, who has a secret of his own that dooms their relationship.
Though her conflicts pale next to those of the soldiers waiting to be posted to battle and even those of her new friend, Jane, whose cousin is a casualty of war and whose fiance is missing in action, it is Gwen's quiet self-discovery that is at the center of the novel. Humphreys renders convincingly her first, fleeting experience of deep friendship and love.
Unfortunately, the story is sometimes marred by overwrought or cloying prose, though Humphreys's language also has its moments of elegance (during the blitz, "houses become holes. Solids become spaces. Anything can disappear overnight"). Humphreys doesn't quite have the narrative energy of Pat Barker and Jane Gardam, but fans of those authors may enjoy this exploration of the impact of WWII on English life.
Recommended by reader Nicole Nelson.
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Julie and Romeo had been born to rival florist families in Boston, but it is love at first sight when they spot each other across a crowded lobby.
Recommended by reader Nicole Nelson.
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Recommended by CG from Acton:
The McCord Maze "is intended to mirror the descent into unconscious sleep, followed by a slow awakening... I read it years ago the maze imagery has stayed with me."
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One of the classics of sexology, the first and still the definitive collection of women's sexual fantasies. Has nothing to do with gardening, and is not to be confused with Frances Hodgson Burnett's Secret Garden, which is all about a young girl discovering a hidden door to a secret garden. Or is it?
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That's it for this category. Click here to suggest a title and we'll do our best to review it.
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