As We Read

The Apothecary by the Sea: A year in an Orkney garden

By: Victoria Bennett, Publisher: Elliott & Thompson

A balance between memoir, botanical and gardening guide, this book is also one, ultimately, of place. Not just the Orkney the family grows into, but all of the places nostalgia touches in her memory.

Orkney is both place and character, with the history that shaped the culture and the culture that shaped the botanical landscape of the place.

I’m rarely comfortable reviewing a memoir, but Victoria’s voice and her place in life, in or past middle age, alongside her urge to root herself in a place for her next period of growth is something I identify with personally. Having avoided putting down the permanent roots of adulthood myself, I share a craving for the connection with the land, and for my hands to shape the land in concert with the demands of the natural landscape. Not to say that the earth speaks in an obvious voice, yet every divot in the meadow, every plant the lives tells of what is, or is not, available right there. This book captures that sense; the intersection of human and botanical with the land and landscape.

I suspect that the design and layout are useful, but the ebook version I had access to made that hard to interpret, so perhaps taking time to view a sample would be useful before choosing digital or physical format.

The illustrations were compelling, but typically not descriptively botanical, definitely better aligned with the memoir side of the book. I’d like to have seen visual representations of more of the plants as the written descriptions were apt and compelling and married application and memoir better than other examples I’ve encountered recently.

Netgalley review copy of the e-book: read over 3 days.

#nonfiction, #Science, #memoir, #botanical