Old English Rose Reads

TBR Lucky Dip: July

As I explained in my post about reading plans for the new year, each month I’m going to be using a random number generator to select a book from my TBR pile for me to read, to help me read more widely from my shelves.

This month, the deities of www.random.org have ordained that I should read book number 412. According to my TBR list this means that I am reading…

The Beauties of a Cottage Garden by Gertrude Jekyll

This is a celebration of the beauties and possibilities of Heoliotrope and Honeysuckle, Auricula, Snapdragon, Spanish Iris and Corydalis, and all the other plants that enliven and exalt the gardens of England.  Gertrude Jekyll gives good advice on how to make a garden a place of repose and pleasure.  Writing with enthusiasm on the colours and scents of flowers, on the frustrations (and delights) of weeding and on the debasing influence of flower shows, she is practical, wise and entertaining in equal measure.

The TBR Lucky Dip has yet to produce a pick with which I am not thrilled.  The Beauties of a Cottage Garden pleases me for four reasons:

1. It is very short, which is an excellent thing as it’s already the 22nd July and I have only just made this selection, so I will be able finish it by the end of the month in spite of all the other demands on my time.
2. It is one of the few books which isn’t either packed up or already transported to The Flat In Which I Do Not Yet Live (well, reading books anyway; all the academic books are yet to come and the Old English Thorn is not going to know what’s hit him) meaning I can actually get at it.
3. It was originally published in 1899 and therefore counts towards the Victorian Literature Challenge.
4. It’s about gardens.

While I have very little interest or aptitude for gardening, I enjoy spending time in the garden  when the weather is fine.  In fact, one of the many attractive features of our new flat is that it has a very nice garden with flowers and a perfectly striped lawn that is magically tended for us, so all we need to do is sit outside and take advantage of it.  This year I’ve already enjoyed a couple of books which take gardens as their theme, so hopefully this book will prove equally entertaining.  After all, it does feel like the right time of year to be reading about gardens.