Reading in the Garden

The French Connection This summer, I'm resurrecting a few of my reviews on summer activities:  gardening and traveling.  Today I will feature one of my favorite books:  A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle.  Along with the reviews, I have t he Property Gnomes who are showcasing some of the flowers in my garden.   Check them out at the end of the review. A Year in Provence  by Peter Mayle  is a humorous account of a British couple who moves to an old farmhouse in Southern France. Thinking back on this book, the IHOP slogan keeps running through my mind.  “Come hungry, leave happy.”  I read this book over twenty years ago when it was first published and I still drool when I think of all the delectable food Peter Mayle mentioned.  From the “sugared slices of fried bread called  tranches dorées,”  to the  “ cold roasted peppers, slippery with olive oil and speckled with fresh basil, tiny mussels wrapped in bacon and ba...

Traveling Brothers Summer time is vacation time, so I thought I’d look at some books about traveling, starting with Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas and Micah Sparks.   The Property Gnomes are also traveling this time with a field trip to my sister’s house.   Check them out at the end of the review. Most people recognize the titles: The Notebook, Message in a Bottle, Nights in Rodanthe, A Walk to Remember— and the list goes on. To the outside world, internationally best-selling author Nicholas Sparks seems to have it all. He has over a dozen hugely successful novels, many of which have been made into movies. He has a loving wife and family. He seems blessed with the Midas touch. But reality steps in, and like everyone else, he has his own difficulties and dilemmas.  Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks is a memoir about the Sparks brothers. It chronicles the brothers’ three-week whirlwind ...

Gardening with Gusto I'm continuing with repeats of book reviews this summer that involve gardening or traveling. If you missed the others so far, check out French Dirt by Richard Goodman or T he Plant Hunters: Two Hundred Years of Adventure and Discovery Around the World by Toby Musgrave, Chris Gardner, and Will Musgrave (which is way more exciting than it sounds). Along with the reviews, my guides, Jonathan and Drew Scott, will show you glimpses of my own garden flowers. But first, the book.... The $64 Tomato by William Alexander is a humorous account of a gardener battling to start and maintain a whopping, über-sized 2,000 square foot kitchen garden! For a professional man and his physician wife to even strive for such a large garden in their spare time is either insane or they have to have a good sense of humor. Well, he definitely had a good sense of humor—this book was funny. About being insane, I’m not qualified to comment. In this book William Alexand...