Books in the news; The Garden Book and Fairacre Festival

Robert are alone books in the news. A quick look at a newly published material and books of current interest. Your host Robert or I'm director of poor public services at the University of Illinois Library I'd like to talk today about two very British books I started to say almost arch typically British books but this I suppose is really not so. The sackful West's garden book is typical only of the English love for a good garden and the garden which she experimented the castle Sissinghurst could only have been done by Sokal who had the money in the background to do so. Misreads the ferric a festival is typical only was rural a small rural village in England and probably only a few of those exist in quite the fashion she describes. They have in common only the deeper loving the soil reveal. No matter how differently or UNC how untypically that is a strong bond indeed and though I don't have my soccer Westway if you were living would really have understood misread. I first came across Rita Sacco West's books name at least in the books in particular the diaries of Harold Nicholson although she was in her own right a noted novelist and travel writer. But her fur idiosyncratic character almost literally stole

the diaries away from her husband. It's a pleasure to read some of her own prose in the very works which which made her popular in England. The garden book edited by her daughter in law Philippa Nicholson published by Athenaeum is a compilation was a series of weekly garden articles published in The Observer from 1947 one thousand sixty one. Whether American gardeners can benefit from her hints I don't know. Surely the climate is too different. But that was not the full point of this compilation. We read Misaka Western gardens as you read Catherine White and seed catalogs in the New Yorker it's one of life's experiences. Well in the foreword Mrs. Nicholson knows that the purposes here have a purpose here has been to retain the character both of the author and her gardening both were highly individual. She was up to boast a bit laugh a bit gross a bit and mingle reminiscences with hard advice and a sentiment with something approaching poetry. The photographs reprinted here are prettier from the Sistine Hearst castle gardens which are now a national trust enough to start a pilgrimage there. It's a very lovely book an invaluable companion to the Nicholson diaries where from

the sublime to the quaint it's quite established one which Dora Jessie S. who writes under the pseudonym of Miss Reed bridges without a blush in fairy festival she did not of course realize she had to compete in this reader's mind at least with a sack of West. Well very good festival published by Houghton Mifflin is really little more than a short story one more chapter in The Chronicle of the little village of Fairacres narrated by the local schoolteacher in a Church of England elementary school. Earlier readers of mis read will need no encouragement especially since this book is much better than the more recent ones. There are those however who will scoff since Mr. Reed is about as far away from the current novels as one can be and still not sound like a school term paper in village life. You know these are honest sharp and quite delightful little vignettes of more or less contemporary rural England. I do not know their equal in American fiction which may be just as well. Well this time we find that a storm has damaged the village church. How is a village of Fairacres defined £2000 repair of the ancient church. Well the answer is to be a festival say like the Festival of Edinburgh or of the algebra one would ring hilarious committee meeting. One member remarked

that people go to Edinburgh not perishing code Kleiman Why on earth couldn't he come to Fairacres and just read just witty enough to show just why the people did indeed come to fairy carry and save the church. Even using with high amusement a deus ex machina device to avoid having to sell the silver a shot was given the church during the reign of Queen. Well that's all there is to the plot but once again we have misread herself. Meet get sharp eyed enough to notice the follies of those around her. And as our old friend Mrs PRINGLE The charwoman the good vicar whose only problem in life is that he thinks there are ten shillings to the poem. There's new character Basil Bradley a rather local celebrity who writes a novel The year was much called one speak of women's clubs you know possibly that men dislike him and women dote on him and they did their best to get him married Miss Reed as if she didn't think it would be successful. Better still about our rights and narrates the Sonny to whom you are about the history of the village church and is so well advertised it brings in great good money and lots of crowds. Now Zal I think is a fine creation one suspect she found him straight to life and we have again the excellent line drawings of J.S. Goodall which are

absolutely right since they bring back the tone of those tatty drawings that littered the school textbooks in 1030. I never quite sure just what the time period is in the fair record books perhaps timeless since the scripts are drawn at a nice healthy neat length when there's much else timelessly must read books at. But if you yearn for English simplicity I think you should like very good festival buy mystery books in the news as prepared and presented by Robert or M and sponsored by the Illinois State Library. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.