The Writer’s Garden
Jackie Bennett (Frances Lincoln, £30)
JACKIE BENNETT is an accomplished garden writer with a track record of covering groups of gardens bound together by context, such as those on islands, artists’ gardens and, in this instance, ones made, worked in or gazed over by distinguished authors. An earlier edition confined itself to British sites, but this new version is considerably beefed up by adding gardens from all over Europe and the US. The effect is broad, deep and rich, and the variety makes for an absorbing read.
The range of writers is considerable, and the sequence gratifyingly varied by the simple technique of placing them in alphabetical order. This makes for ceaseless entertainment if the book is read gradually from beginning to end instead of in the usual cherry-picking fashion. Thus Karen Blixen is followed by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Jean Cocteau by Roald Dahl, and Rudyard Kipling
