Abominable Gardener

Blessed with a highly evolved gift for making plants die

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@DylanoA4 One of the wonders of the earth, I believe.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@bibliopaul I’m in! Brilliant choice.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

Oh my. The Last Samurai is a scalp-burning flaming wonder of a thing. I’ve had to bury it in a cupboard and give myself a stern lecture about the pitfalls of gluttonous reading. Also, I want to be a model participant in @joiedevivre9’s #DeWitt2023. Page count schmage count. Oops!

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

I’m avoiding all context about #DeWitt23. I don’t know how I’ve managed that in my life until now, but I want to take advantage and read in ignorance. So far, freaking wow. What a prologue. I may owe @joiedevivre9 a debt for life.

[Kim McNeill •📚🍂☕️ @joiedevivre9]

"It is deliberately—proudly—erudite & intertextual; it is, like the mind of its author, stubbornly idiosyncratic...it is a novel less interested in being ambitious for ambition’s sake, than it is in cultivating ambition in its readers." #DeWitt2023 https://t.co/rMuUxyXb3C

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@joiedevivre9 @bibliopaul @mookse I’m in if you’re going there!

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@mookse @nyrbclassics I loved this. But tho I felt relieved as a human that the narrator was ��rescued’ from desperation by a kind man, I was disappointed as a reader. I know she lacked the resources to change her own life-but a rich man whisking her away to a life of chintz and fine china?#nyrbwomen23

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@joiedevivre9 @Ofbooksandbikes @Christina5004 @stephaniesalmon Stevie is a perfect character - the intelligence, the inventiveness, the will !! I love her.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@pearjelly_ @Ravilious1942 Yes and yes.
Though do wish my images of the sad waxworks weren’t quite so vivid.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@HelenJMacdonald Isn’t she superb!

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@Ofbooksandbikes Those green Virago editions were glorious. That’s a perfect cover for A VIEW OF THE HARBOUR. I’m eager to read people’s responses to it - I don’t know many novels that shift so sharply between mean spirited, petty, narcissism, and compassionate wisdom.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@fouroclockcup @BacklistedPod Oh, please listen to the @BacklistedPod discussion again. I find the podcast is a gift before you’ve read a book, and a hailstorm of wonder when you’ve been inside the book with them.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@sparrowpost That is the law.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@joiedevivre9 @nyrbclassics I enjoy reading your writing about reading. I may be wrong, but your comments strike me as genuine responses, without the filters that professional critics apply to protect their reputations.
Are your impressions of these books consolidated anywhere?

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@PaulWelters @last_of_england Did you find the Levant Trilogy as compelling as the Balkan? I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve held off for years, frightened I’ll be disappointed.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@joiedevivre9 Delicious.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@thehappydog_ Aloysius Fishbottom

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@AlexBMcauliffe I’ve waited 20 years for someone to agree with me about the spooky, scalp-popping, poetic genius of Cadmus and Harmony. Ta.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@LaurenGolden__ Wowza up the wahzoo!
I thought I’d find it curious. Nup. It’s a farking knockout. The atmosphere!

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@_motherslug What a master.

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

@mookse @msjensf @joiedevivre9 I’m finding the atmosphere of In a Lonely Place is getting into my bones. The roads, the bars, the apartment complex! I think I’ll risk the movie just to see how that’s infused….

[Abominable Gardener @AbominableG]

I can’t think of many things that make me as aware of the changes in American cinema as the knowledge that in 1950 a movie was made of Dorothy Hughes’ In a Lonely Place. Wtf? #NYRBWomen23