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Top of the pile
86
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
75/100Critics
96/100Scholars
Author:
Niall Williams, Christine Breen
Publisher:
Bloomsbury Publishing
Date:
August 31, 2021
35 years ago, when they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave their lives in New York City and move to Christine's ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening, and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth. In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the land itself threatened by the arrival of turbines just one farm over, Niall and Christine decided to document a year of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month-by-month through the year, and with seasonal illustrations, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendors and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.
What The Reviewers Say
... magical.
Some will nod knowingly at the musings on courgette gluts, recalling their own efforts to offload armfuls of the fecund vegetable on friends and neighbours. Those with soil-free fingernails, however, are more likely to ponder the psychology of a grower who, despite annual proof of profligacy, remains plagued by doubt and persists in planting too many. But will a non-gardener even pick up the book? Hopefully. Because while the events chronicled rarely move beyond the garden, and while the descriptions are so intimate they almost elicit grief for the dying cherry tree and spark exhortations to the dahlias to hold on to their heavy heads, it is the gardeners’ personalities that bloom..
... moving and surprisingly provocative.
Although they acknowledge the peril of climate change and recognize the need to stop using fossil fuels.
