If you want to look at the Upton Grey gardens as a sort of living museum, the "unnatural" and "time-warp" comments are irrelevant. Many aspects of life as lived a hundred years ago would seem that way today: fashion, social conventions, etc. GJ herself would have been an anomaly, an independent thinker, and unmarried, though she did have the support of her well-off family. As a private garden for even the most enthusiastic gardener of moderate means, it's totally impractical. Could you imagine doing the tennis lawn maintenance she describes annually? In that sense, the time warp comment is apt. GJ was designing gardens at a time when household servants and gardeners were still affordable. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) it was around WWI that social changes in Britain made it impossible to find household help cheaply. I'm struck by the author's commitment to see the project through and admire her courage. She made a lot of mistakes (some of them over and over, inexplicably, like the pond debacle and the repeated planting of cannas too early) but you've got to give her a lot of credit for putting herself out there and risking embarrassment before the stream of gardening bigwigs who came to see her efforts in the early years. I personally don't think I could live with the restrictions she puts on herself regarding plant materials. Her strict adherence to the original plan and plant selections are the only way to give garden visitors a look at an authentic GJ garden, but I'm sure the designer would be using modern improved varieties if she were alive today. Especially with the thugs and disease prone roses. Yuck. Jo

I just posted our selections on the 2011 Book Club choices thread. (I tried to post the list earlier, but my Firefox browser crashed just as I was finishing, so I turned off my computer in frustration.) Since you've asked in this thread, I'll repeat the list: Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah Biography Night (individual choice) Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor Our community One Read book (title as yet unknown) Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick Shanghai Girls by Lisa See My group has already read several of the the suggestions that were offered in this thread, and generally we liked all of them, so I think we'd like the others as well. I will keep this list handy for future selections. Thanks again! -- Kathy

Well, I'm in my book club primarily for the socializing! I would read books anyway. I enjoy the social aspect of discussing books with others, and I really like the women in my group. I realized one day that while I had garden friends, and sewing friends, and friends I used to work with, I knew almost no one who lived the same town as me, despite having lived there for 18 years. I knew that the mother of one of my daughter's friends was in a book club, and asked her if they were taking new members. The rest is history, and I'm having a whale of a time. I'm even reading books I'd otherwise never have encountered on my own. Some I like, some I do not, but it does expand my horizons.

Who chooses the books? A librarian or "community relations"-type specialist, or the members of the book club? Some of my co-workers have a book club (I have so many "to be reads" on my bookshelves and in a list I keep that I passed on the book-club format, for now). Everybody, in time, gets to pick a book, but I think there's also an up/down vote taken.