Books about house restoration and lore are bookish loves of mine. Every summer, I take up at least one or two, and I have now found the perfect candidates for this summer. The first is Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History in which author Adam Nicolson shares his story of moving into the historic home of grandparents Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicolson, and restoring the lands with their original plantings and use. The National Trust controls this beauty in Kent, but Nicolson's input has reportedly greatly enhanced the natural landscape as well as providing the many guests that walk through the property with a more historically accurate view of the uses of the Sissinghurst house and property.
My second house porn selection for the summer is new from Bloomsbury this September. Inheritance: The Story of Knole and the Sackvilles by Robert Sackville-West is a memoir of the Sackville family told through the vast four-hundred-year-old Knole House in Kent. Vita once famously described her family as "a race too prodigal, too amorous, too weak, too indolent, and too melancholy: a rotten lot, and nearly all stark, staring mad." Ah, the love of family.
Yes, Vita is a theme here but the actual main characters are the houses, a topic I find irresistible. This stuff is like People magazine for literary book geeks. Where do you stand on house memoirs?
