books

Much as I enjoy a good visitor, nothing gets in the way of my reading.  I live by the maxim:

I must admit I'm not into audio books yet.  Naturally, superwoman Georgia listens to audio books as she works on a million other things.  I'll listen to them when my eyesight fails.

I have just finished The Writer's Garden.

This was a present from The Floosie.  I'm very proud that I waited until Christmas Day to unwrap and start reading it.  Actually it was Boxing Day before I got to present opening, wanting to wallow in the occasion alone.  It's a beautiful book and even got me liking Sir Walter Scott.  May even read something of his someday.  I was particularly taken with the idea of a 'committee of taste' to assist him in the building of his palatial house and gardens.  The Floosie and I used to be the Arbiters of Taste for the Bellerive Historical Society.  It was also a seamless segue (haven't heard that phrase for a while) from the lovely library book I was reading in Adelaide about Beatrix Potter's houses and gardens.
The Australian Coastal Gardens book I also borrowed from the library in Adelaide, and was so inspired by it that I thought of buying.  Fortunately reason prevailed and I have it from the library here.  I've read it from cover to cover and studied every photograph so probably don't need it any more.  I like the writer's style, though he does use 'tomentose' till you're nearly comatose, and call cray pots 'crab pots'.  We fishing port people know better.  He is a garden designer and commented on the freedom he now has as a writer to knock on people's doors and ask to look over their gardens.  A freedom known to, and exploited by, the Bellerive Arbiters of Taste thanks to the Bellerive Heritage series.  Glory days.

Steve bought me this book after hearing the author interviewed.  It is truly astonishing what this woman got away with, and a fantastical read.

I'm still making my way through this one.  Not because it is a difficult read but because it is a re-write of Tasmanian history and there is so much to absorb and contemplate.  I feel like I'm with old friends from my History M. Qual. days as the contemporary sources are quoted.

I'm also taking it easy with this one, another I discovered in Adelaide.  There's so much to learn and, so far, he hasn't used 'tomentose' once, though I've learned so much about how plants conserve water for their own use.

Here's my dry garden today.

And another of my secret escapes