BOOK REVIEWS

Author: Kate Llewellyn
Title: Playing with Water: a story of a garden
Publisher: Fourth Estate (Harper Collins), Australia, NZ, UK, Canada, US Price: $29.95 Aus

Contents/coverage: Part memoir, part nature writing, including poetry and recipes—a celebration of the author's joy in creating and maintaining gardens.

Evaluation: My daughter lent me this book, and I started to read it with some reservations, but found that I couldn't put it down. The author's love of trees and plants shines from the pages, interspersed with snippets of friendships enjoyed. Beautifully written, a book to lift your spirits. Kate is the author of several books, including 'The Waterlily: a Blue Mountains Journal', and is a renowned Australian poet. Did you know that Paradise apparently means 'a beautiful garden'?

Don't bother if gardening isn't your thing.

Recommended ***

W.O.

MY CHOICE

• Favourite music—Schubert Trios and Quartets
• Aafje Heynis singing Handel's Erbarme dich from St Matthew Passion BWV 244
• Tom Lehrer We Will All Go Together When We Go
• Bunk Johnson Just A Closer Walk With Thee
• anything by Jelly Roll Morton
• Clarence 'Pinetop' Smith Pinetop's Blues
• anything by Erroll Garner
• Leonard Cohen Take this Waltz
• Movies—Carol Reed's The Third Man
• Books—Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
• anything by Alan Watts
• Paul Bailey Think of an Elephant
• Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now