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TIME AND THE GARDENER

Name: TIME AND THE GARDENER
Author: Elisabeth Sheldon
ISBN: 0-8070-8556-1

WRITINGS ON A LIFELONG PASSION

by Elisabeth Sheldon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2003

Now an octogenarian, Sheldon writes, “I myself would like to meet Death in the flower garden—falling facedown onto a cushion...

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Natty essays from the garden: brassy practicality with pungent opinions handed out like garlic.

The collection shows Sheldon (The Flamboyant Garden, not reviewed, etc.) at her best not-quite-formal style: controlled but fluid prose from the gardening trenches, generous, experienced, capable of a little mischief. The self-contained essays fuse into a kind of journal of information and observations that displays a broad, widely encompassing enthusiasm—which even to Sheldon can be “alarming, though: for what if one should be left with nothing to hate?” A number of pieces concern themselves with hard facts, like the payoff of keeping a log or how to gather seeds and plant from them. The author admits when she’s flummoxed (“Do other people’s primulas stay tidy all summer? If so, how do they do it? Mine become spotty and yellow, quite hideous”) and gives her chapters sporty titles like “Shrubs for the Mixed Border” and “Putting the Garden to Bed.” She writes with a precise touch about elements of gardening that touch her soul, like the atavistic pleasures of a woods garden or why one should take garden snobbery and stick it deep underground along with the bulbs, perhaps paint it, as she does sumac, “with poison ivy killer.” (She also writes about systemic herbicides, so readers averse to such treatment, beware.) Sheldon includes spare paeans to some of her garden favorites—columbines, astilbes, cranesbills, goatsbeards—as well as vest-pocket introductory biographies of Gertrude Jekyll, Jane Loudon, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Alexander Pope, and Horace Walpole. Most of all, she embraces the process, the unfolding, of garden and gardener, the chance additions, the blunders that teach, the successful or disastrous working of ideas.

Now an octogenarian, Sheldon writes, “I myself would like to meet Death in the flower garden—falling facedown onto a cushion of Dianthus gratianopolitanus, if that’s not too much to ask.” No, but not for a while, please.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-8070-8556-1

Page Count: 262

Publisher: Beacon Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.