Book of the Month April 2023

Modern Nature

This month’s book of the month is Modern Nature by Derek Jarman. A meditative journey through Jarman’s experience of AIDS and the solace he found in his garden. In a series of diary entries he describes the flourishing beauty of his garden, the flowers and the wild winds from the sea that it looked out upon. These entries are set alongside considerations of Jarman’s life from childhood through to adulthood, a poignant living eulogy to his fading life and the many friends he was loosing and had lost. There are journeys to Avebury, and stone circles made from pebbles collected from the shoreline, and there are of course many hag stones. Modern Nature is a quietly but deeply effecting book; a memoir like no other. Have you read it? Do let us know!