Whenever I’ve asked about for recommendations of good gardening books, Nichols is invariably mentioned, either for the Merry Hall trilogy or the earlier Down the Garden Path, both semi-fictional chronicles of his gardening efforts at his homes. We came to know it intimately, since it was high summer, and daylight lasts until 10pm or even later. Nichols completely won me over when he began praising Georgian architecture and deriding Tudor cottages in no uncertain terms. The beginning was great, lots of anecdotes about funny English countryside neighbors and pet cats and stubborn old housekeepers. Beverley Nichols' garden books are part PG Wodehouse and part James Barrie - full of hilarious Jeeves-like characters and events, with moments of Peter Pan magic.

Little by little, the charm of being stunned and sent reeling to the wall, six times a day, by the low beams on the ceiling, is apt to pall; one no longer darts gaily to the bathroom for the sticking plaster, chortling with amusement at the nice Tudore bumpe on one’s forehead.PS While I’m a rather reluctant gardener myself, I do enjoy sitting in the garden especially in the spring and summer. Such a pretty name, I have always thought, and I have no doubt that you will make sure that it lives up to that name. I am reading James: The Portrait of a Lady for my book group and Nichols is a great relief from page- long paragraphs! The first of them, Down the Garden Path, centered on his home and garden at Glatton and has been in print almost continuously since 1932.

If you’re sensitive, this is not the book for you, as Nichols cheerfully insults all manner of people (women in particular). Looking round Reading Books I found a Nichols review by Erica, and following a link at the end of that, found you.It is entertaining to read about the twee posturings of Rose till you realize that most of his contemporary readers would have known whom he was skewering (and till you realize that he has a fair amount of twee in his own nature). I bought the Merry Hall trilogy for my mother for her birthday, and was delighted when she passed them on to me. Merry Hall is the first book in his series about his very British gardening adventures as he fixes up and generally spiffifies the manor he bought outside London. In fact I haven’t ventured into the garden at all, not even to see if my Galanthus ‘Three Ships’ is nearly out. John Van de Water Newark Star-Ledger 19980708 Since gardening and humor are timeless, his books are as delightful today as in the early days after World War II when this was written.