Book Reviews: Good Reads for a Cold Winter's Night

A belated Happy New Year to everyone!  The year has certainly gotten off to a better start than December, at least weather-wise.  Temperatures in the 50's over the weekend along with some rain melted all the snow so that I can see green grass again.  But our Illinois winter is far from over, so it's a great time to snuggle under a blanket on a cold winter's evening with a good book.

For gardeners, may I suggest you pick up Sydney Eddison's Gardening for a Lifetime.  As a woman "of a certain age" and one who began gardening later in life, I was intrigued by the title, hoping to find some suggestions to make gardening less labor-intensive and ways to maintain my garden for as long as possible. Eddison offers tips to do just that, but she also tells of her personal journey in gardening over the years.

An award-winning garden writer, lecturer, and teacher, Eddison's acre and a half garden in Connecticut has been featured in magazines and on television.  For years, she kept expanding her garden little by little until she eventually admitted she had created a garden she couldn't possibly keep up with.  Although she often had regular help, she needed even more help, more than she could afford.  She realized that she had to make some changes in order to keep doing what she loved. 

Some of the changes that Eddison suggests:

• Get rid of fussy plants: "In order to remain in my garden a perennial must be truly perennial and return faithfully every year." 



One of Eddison's favorite low-maintenance perennials is Sedum 'Autumn Joy.'

• Be thankful for all the shade you have: "Shade-tolerant plants are easier to maintain than sun-lovers."
• Substitute shrubs for perennials--"they afford more value for less work."

 


Various shrubs in the Idea Garden provide the "bones" for the borders. 
This is an idea I want to copy in my own garden.



• And my personal favorite . . . "Accept imperfection."

 

My Butterfly Garden is the epitome of imperfection, but I love it all the same.

 Eddison is still working in her large garden, but she tells the stories of several friends who decided it was time to move on to smaller places with less maintenance.  Happily, they are still gardening, but on a smaller scale and finding joy in simpler, easy-to-maintain gardens. 

Eddison's clear prose and personal reflections make this an interesting and fast read.  But if you're short of time, you could just read the last two pages of each chapter where she conveniently sums up the main points.  The only criticism I have of  the book is that I wish she had included color photographs of her garden.  The book has some black and white illustrations sprinkled throughout, but when it comes to gardening books I am like a first-grader--the more pictures, the better!  But that is merely my curiosity about her garden; you don't really need photos to understand her philosophy.  While Gardening for a Lifetime would primarily appeal to those of us who are beginning to realize our limitations, it is also a helpful resource for younger gardeners who may be more limited in time than in physical stamina.  It also is a great aid for any age gardener in making long-term plans.  As Eddison says, "Gardens and Gardeners age and change."

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Actually, I finished reading Eddison's book well over a month ago.  For the past few days I've been reading a novel that has kept me from reading blogs, not to mention taking down the rest of the Christmas decorations.  The novel that has kept me up reading late into the night is The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third in the trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson.  Ellen wrote an excellent review for the September Book Review Club meeting, so I won't be redundant and write another critique here, other than to say these three books are the best thrillers/crime fiction I've read in a long, long time.

I read the first two in the series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire early this past summer.  But I wanted to wait until this winter when I had plenty of time to read the concluding book--these are books you definitely don't want to put down. A lazy New Year's weekend while Husband watched every bowl game on TV was the perfect opportunity.  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is much less violent than the first two--especially Tattoo, which contains some scenes I found very disturbing--but is every bit as detailed and compelling as the earlier books.  If you haven't read any of these novels, don't skip to the last one, however--it would not only be difficult to understand the story line without reading the first two, but you also wouldn't have the empathy for the enigmatic heroine Lisbeth Salander that is developed by reading the earlier novels.  Sadly, Stieg Larsson passed away after handing the manuscripts for this trilogy to his publisher, so there will be no more stories of Blomkvist and Salander.  If there were, I would be lined up at the bookstore the day each one came out!

Disclaimer: No compensation was received for the writing of these reviews:  I checked out Gardening for a Lifetime from my local library, and I purchased my own hardback copy of The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

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@Barrie Summy