Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.
The rules are simple:
- Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
- Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
- Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
- Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is Books That Conjure Up Happy Memories. My happiest times are those spent in the garden so I’ve chosen ten books on the subject of gardening, either practical how-to guides, memoirs or fiction set in gardens. Although given the dry summer we’ve had this year in my area, I probably should have included The Rain Never Came by Lachlan Walter. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.
- Hortobiography by Carol Klein – the autobiography of gardening guru Carol Klein
- Where the Hornbeam Grows by Beth Lynch – a memoir of creating a garden in a new country – Switzerland
- A Fenland Garden by Francis Pryor – an account of creating a garden that is a haven for wildlife
- A Year in a Small Garden by Frances Tophill – a combination of practical advice and the author’s experience of creating her very own garden
- Dwell by Rue Bradley – a new gardener, rumoured to be a hero of WW1, arrives at a boarding school and catches the attention of one of the pupils
- The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan – in the newly-installed Edinburgh Botanic Garden, the agave americana plant looks set to flower, an event that only occurs once every few decades
- Earthly Joys by Philippa Gregory – first of two novels based on the life of 16th century English plant hunter John Tradescant
- The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Armin – four women respond to an advertisement in The Times appealing to “those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine” to rent a small medieval Italian castle for a month
- At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier – in 19th century Ohio, James and Sadie Goodenough work to tame a patch of land so they can cultivate the fifty apple trees required to stake their claim on the property
- The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng – a Malaysian woman and former war crimes prosecutor is taught the art of creating a Japanese garden in memory of her dead sister
