Welcome to Litsy!

Thank you so much for this lovely gift, Megan! @TheKidUpstairs ☺️

I bet you thought it was lost in the post, didn‘t you? It looks like you posted it in September! 🤨

I‘m glad you like it so much and that makes me look forward to reading it even more! ❤️

I‘ve always had a fondness of wild, unkept English gardens with stone walls. There are some beautiful passages in this book about the human condition that are expressed in the language of wild, growing things. The main character leaves a hollowing London and finds herself in such a garden, tasked with growing food for wartime. The garden meets her with mystery surprise, and ghosts, leading her to go deeper into her relationship with the ⬇️

The thing about gardens is that everyone thinks they go on growing, that in winter they sleep and in spring they rise. But it‘s more that they die and return, die and return. They lose themselves. They haunt themselves. Every story is a story about death. But perhaps, if we are lucky, our story about death is also a story about love. And this is what I have remembered of love.

The language of roses shifts like sand under our feet. It blows in and out like the wind. It carries the fragrance of the flower and then it is gone. Rugosa. Canina. Arvensis. It is how we learn to speak about something that is disappearing as we say its name. It is a trick, a false comfort. Humilis. It is what we think we need to know and how we think it needs to be known. Involuta. It is where we want to go, this name, and stay⬇️

Sometimes our passion is our ruin. The thing with roses is that they were just too unmanageable for Ellen Willmott—indeed, for any single person—to pin down and categorize, to fix on the page. They kept fluctuating, changing their names and associations, refusing to lie still. The roses kept growing, even on paper. They were a living language. And Ellen Willmott couldn‘t hope to contain them. What I love about The Genus Rosa is that it⬇️

The Garden of Loss blooms in May. It is a simpler construction than the Garden of Longing. It contains fewer species, but more plants. The middle of the three gardens, it begins with a great, breaking wave of peonies. The blooms are white and pale pink, grow upright for now, giant buttons of brilliance festooning green leafy tunics. But soon their heads will become too heavy for the thin, weed-like stalks on which they rise with such⬇️

The plant not yet in bloom is lavender. I love lavender. What is more potent than to have that scent on your fingers as you leave the garden? To rub your hands over the leaves, so that all day, as you do your duties, the dying smell will remind you, will make you feel longing all over again. Dead flowers keep their fragrance. And with lavender on them, it is as though your hands become dead flowers themselves, losing the living scent little⬇️

I was dreaming of a great tangle of roses, and when I woke, the first thing I saw was roses. That wooden arch above my head was a bower entwined with roses. A mass of roses. All on fire.

He settles back in his chair, a skitter of worry across his handsome face. If he were a flower, he would be something magnificent. A giant indigo-blue delphinium. A flower that knows, and practices, how to be in love with itself.

Some of the roses mentioned in the book.
R. Egalanteria
R. Arvensis
R. Rugosa
R. Phoenicia

On summer days, with my window open, I could smell the rubbish quite strongly, often mistaking it for the odors of my parsnip specimens. But I was left alone there. I did not have to fuss with people, only parsnips.

(I know what she‘s saying, but this is what I see in my mind🤣)

One‘s first experience of love is either love received or love denied, and against that experience all our future desires and expectations are measured.

There is a vocabulary to existing, to taking up living space in the world, that cannot be translated over the chasm of death.

Waiting to meet a friend for dinner & coffee at a coffee shop that is new to me. Only 12 minutes from work, by the airport. A little further for him, but he doesn‘t mind. He was my mentor- I student taught with him. ❤️ Delicious looking croissants for tomorrow‘s breakfast are in the white boxes.🥐

Early morning read & coffee.
It‘s a cold 45 degrees, pouring rain. Reading about a garden & love in midst of war makes me feel hope for sunshine.
booksandcoffee #shelfsweeper ##4Elizabeth

My intro to Helen Humphrey. She was recommended by my cousin (more specifically Followed by the Lark, but this was the first book of hers I could get my hands on). I loved this so much! surprisingly so! It gave me an entirely new (more intriguing) direction for my own gardens 🌷🪻 and for such a short book I cried several times 😢
I‘ve since picked up more of her work. And bonus that she‘s a 🇨🇦 author from a town near by.

A poetic story about a lonely woman who leaves London during the war to assist with growing potatoes in the countryside and the those she meets who ultimately change her and her life. Full of longing, love, and loss, this book made me cry more than once. #24in2024

Gem of a book with beautiful writing and imagery, as beautiful as the flowers and gardens described in the novel. Set against the war, it‘s quiet and melancholic as the story is about those who are waiting at home..those waiting for return of loved ones; for love; and to be sent off to war. It breaks my heart. There‘re so many great quotes, I took my time with the book. Read it for June‘s #TBRtarot 😅

My picks for #12daysof2023
May - The Lost Garden
June - Miss Buncle's Book
@Andrew65

My first Humphreys and I‘m super excited 🩷🌺🙌🏻And I‘ve been wanting to read this love.y hardcover from Bloomsbury 😍it‘s GORGEOUS ❣️Thank you SO MUCH @TrishB for the amazing birthday gifts 🌈💜🎂📚 You know I‘m LOVING the whole floral theme🪻🌸🪷💐🌼🌻🌺

Well that just broke my heart into pieces! 😭 At first I thought the prose might teeter into cloying, but it won me over. Exquisite!

My #doublespin for May. Good so far! Also, I've been reading a lot of longer books lately. Nice to read something fairly short.

Lovely, short book about a group of women who volunteer to grow food for the WWII war effort. Lots of references to Virginia Woolf‘s To the Lighthouse, so an added benefit that it prompted a reread of that book for me.

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs thanks 🙏 for the tag @Ddzmini 1. Flower pot on balcony. 2. Sprouted sweet potato 🍠 vine last year 3. the tagged book. Tagging all Littens who would like to play

So this month was my first #BookSpinBingo. So much fun! Great way to #tackletheTBR. I read my #BookSpin AND my#DoubleSpin. AND will probably get a bingo! Can‘t wait for June!

Loved The Lost Garden, thank you @tdrosebud

Thank you Tanya! @tdrosebud . One of my favorite descriptions of a book is “a little gem”! I will be diving in to the yummy chocolates shortly. Happy Valentine‘s Day! 💕🌹💖
Thank you for organizing @candority #BookCupidSwap

“Home is the place where we‘ve felt the most, I will tell him. And that can be anyplace. Or anyone. It doesn‘t matter how long you lived there. It‘s what you‘ll always want to come back to. “

Oh this book really made me cry. It‘s so full of goodness & beauty , and so calming.
The three gardens ✨✨✨
So glad I finally read this.
Thanks Leah for this book.

Beautiful but so sad. Read if you enjoy books about gardens.

First outdoor reading session of the year on this gorgeous day ❤️

I've read Helen Humphreys' poetry but this is my first time reading her prose. Unsurprisingly, it's beautifully crafted; I'm really enjoying it.

5⭐️ Gosh, I really love this book. Reading this is just like taking a walk in the garden 💐 It‘s so refreshing, and sentimental at the same time. The ending is a perfect wrap of all the feelings explored throughout the story. It‘s perfection! 👌🏻

Currently reading...

@Eggs said I wasn't too late so here we go! #wondrouswednesday

For me, writing talent is the intrinsic ability to link words together in a pleasing and compelling manner to tell your stories. That said, I don't believe talent is necessary to become a writer, and that hard work means as much as talent in the end.

My favorite writer living is Helen Humphreys. Her ability to weave poetry in prose blows me away every time.

Thanks for tagging me!

#autobuy Helen Humphreys. Humphreys is a Canadian poet and novelist. The first book I read was Afterimage, which I read many years ago. My favourite book is the tagged book. Because of that book, I visited the Lost Gardens of Heligan in 2007. Please add The Lost Garden to your tbr if you haven‘t yet read it. It‘s so beautiful. I have not yet read The Frozen Thames. I would love you to share your fave author piles with me!

Day 7. #7days7covers #covercrush
Thanks @Tiffiney for inviting me to play.

My first post, about A Certain Age, was more than 3 years ago and it got zero likes. My second post, which had no picture was for The Lost Garden and got one like from @charl08 . Fun to look back on this #firstlike @Texreader

My Helen Humphreys stack! (I have two of her books as ebooks). I've re-read through her wonderful collection! Now it's time to move on to other writers (until her next book comes out). 😍📚

I think this absolute gem of a novel is my favourite Helen Humphreys book. It's a story about reading where the text is an abandoned garden, the writer is the gardener who created it and the reader is the gardener who resurrects it. It's also a story of love and loss. An absolute pleasure every time I read it! 😍📚

Still re-reading my way through all Helen Humphreys books. Such a pleasure!

Re-reading this gem! 😍📚

Cottage! 😍📚

💔😢 how does the author pack so much into a little tiny book. I can‘t stop thinking about the ending, made me cry and hard to explain exactly why. Gentle but heart breaking and so beautifully written. Every time I went to post a quote I could see someone had got there before me. I understand the love 💕 I have also just downloaded To The Lighthouse as I‘ve never read...
Are the authors other books as good?

My next read, a total #blameitonlitsy specifically @saresmoore and @batsy . This one waved very vigorously from the tbr this morning!

Watched The Great American Read tonight and saw that my favorite novel, The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys, didn't make the list.

Anyone else's favorite not make that list?

#thegreatamericanread #faviritenovel

1. Nuts and crisps 😋
2. Tagged is my most recent #blameit on Litsy, specifically @saresmoore but if never heard of Netgalley before so I'm blaming all ARCs on Littens too
3. Salmon 😔
4. Mostly clean but I struggle to keep my desk tidy at home
5. Arrival. I didn't like everything but it's a very interesting take on contact with an alien species
@mindea
#humpdaypost

A big thank you to @saresmoore for bringing this beautiful novel to my attention. Humphreys prose is so calm but there's so much depth and emotion to it. The surface story of love and loss and fear with a group of Land Girls and soldiers is wonderfully rendered but it's also a book about art, here the work of Virginia Woolf, and its power to move and change us and bring us within the reach of writers and people we otherwise cannot know ⬇️

Just got home to find that two of the books I ordered myself arrived along with the sweetest birthday card from @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Thank you so much Misty! It is such a wonderful surprise and means a lot to me.

First book that I have read by Helen Humphreys - a beautifully written historical novel set in the English countryside during the World War II London Blitz. The ending is heartbreaking but beautifully done. Will definitely add more books by this Canadian author to my reading list.

“There is a vocabulary to existing, to taking up living space in the world, that cannot be translated over the chasm of death” -speaking on the death of Virginia Woolf

🌷I think this is one of the most beautiful quotes I have read in some time. This book is already becoming a meaningful one for me that I am savoring. I‘ve had to pause a few times and just reread passages and marvel at the word choice and emotion it was eliciting from me.