Nancy @ the Service Center Archive.

In 1946 Mr. Nichols longed to escape post-war London, so he went looking for a small Georgian House, not too far from the city, with about 5 acres of land where he could create a garden.  He found Merry Hall.  It fit all his requirements, and he bought it, even though the Georgian lines of the building had been ruined by remodeling and additions, the interior was in shambles, the five acres were mostly weeds and nettles, and the gardener who came with the house was devoted to all the mistakes of the former owner.  With the help of his incredibly efficient factotum, Gaskin; the reluctant but expert aid of the gardener; the company of his cats, One and Four; and the occasional interference of neighbors, he turned Merry Hall into his dream house and garden.  He tells the story with classic deadpan British humor.

You don't have to be a gardener to enjoy this book.  (My favorite garden activity is to recline gracefully in the shade on a hot day with a cool drink and a good book.)  You do need to be prepared for strong prejudices, mostly about plants, but also about women and what Nichols considers the lower classes, and accept that he was a creature of different times.  He brings the best of those times alive most enchantingly.

Secret Scriptures
By Sebastian Barry

Roseanne McNulty is 100 years old and has spent over half of her of life in the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital when she begins the secret journal.  But the voice recalling many years full of turmoil and sorrow does not sound mad.   Her language is at once precise and lyrical, full of poetry, yet firmly grounded.  Her personal tragedy is gradually depicted against the backdrop of sectarian violence and a whole country in upheaval.

Roseanne's journal is interspersed with the commonplace book of Dr. Green, manager of the mental hospital. The institution is being downsized, and he must determine who should be given the freedom to return to the community. Though well meaning he is absorbed in his own sorrow, mourning first the failure of his marriage, then the death of his wife.    There are few records to help him evaluate Roseanne, and she is not particularly helpful to him.  

Dr. Green's search for clues as to why Roseanne was institutionalized finds a somewhat different history than the one the revealed in her journal raising many questions for the reader.  Was her father a member of the hated Irish police, or merely a grave digger?  How did he die?  If she was married, why did she tell Dr. Green he should address herby her maiden name?  Did she kill her only child at birth?  If not what happened to him?  And the big one - is she mad?

The quality of Barry's language and the vividness of Roseanne's story more than compensate for the occasionally awkward device of the two journals and slightly too pat ending.  The people in Roseanne's past; the stifling life of a small town contrasted to the wild openness of the sea; the eternal Irish rain all come alive on the page.  Curl up with this book before a toasty fire on a wet evening and you might not be sure whether the misty rain outside your window is coming in off Puget Sound or Sligo Bay.