What I'm Reading

I’ve finished Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor, Anthony Trollope’s Cousin Henry, Zola’s Pot Luck, and Ruth apRoberts’ The Moral Trollope.

After that heavy reading I deserve a break, so I picked up the first in Caroline Graham's Inspector Barnaby series, The Killings at Badger’s Drift. Last night Wilhelm and I watched an episode of Midsomer Murders on DVD from Netflix, which is what inspired me to read Graham’s mystery. I have a serious crush on John Nettles.

We are, as Wilhelm has told you, having some work done on our 1923 bungalow and as we discussed with the folks from Integrity Remodeling what we were going to do with the deck in back the suggestion was made that we simply rip it out. A circa-1970 deck on a house like ours just doesn’t do.

So Jason ripped it out and he found beneath a brick patio, probably put there at the time the house was built. What a find! I’ve begun dreaming of the landscaping I’m going to do next spring in our much changed back yard, and to that end I've been reading (well, mostly looking at the pictures in) Outside the Bungalow by Paul Duchscherer and Douglas Keister.

Besides hundreds of pictures of plants and trees, walks and patios, seats and arbors, the book explains what materials were most often used in bungalow gardens and walkways (wood, concrete, and brick) and what plants were popular in early 20th century gardens. There are hundreds of plants listed and organized by zone, sun conditions, soil type, and more.

When I get through having fun with these books I’m going to begin reading the next selection for my trollope group, The Duke'sChildren, and for my not-trollope reading group, Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise, which is a sort of sequel to Pot Luck.