n A Countrywoman's Journal by Margaret Shaw (Constable, £12.99)
WHATEVER its merits, people are bound to compare this with that 70s publishing phenomenon The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.
In much the same way that Edith Holden sketched the fields and hedgerows close to her Warwickshire home in 1906, so this Sussex naturalist did much the same, but 20 years later.
The comparisons are just too similar not to avoid.
Both lay hidden in drawers for over 70 years (I suspect Shaw's was underneath Holden's) and both are a facsimile of the original sketchbooks, offering the reader an insight into a nave, almost vanished world.
Shaw's differs in that there are considerably more words and less sketches and in many respects, it is a two-year diary with illustrations...
"Elham. March 8 1928. Woke to the sound of House Sparrows chirping and scuffling under the eaves. Moorhens calling and wren singing. There was quite a hard frost in the night, outside my window in a pine tree a pair of sparrows were making love."
Also, readers are presented with an insight into the shy artist who kept her sketches secret, even from the man, 31 years her junior, with whom she shared more than 20 years of her life.
To be honest, it is this preface to the book that is perhaps its more interesting aspect.
Endorsed by Peggy Vance, a former curator at the V&A, the publishers have not stinted in promoting the Journal... an elaborate and expensive-looking 12-page flyer... a postcard... and who can blame them?
Given that Worcestershire-born Holden's Country Diary was in The Sunday Times best-seller list for well over a year, that it spawned a TV series, mugs, notepaper, greetings cards, wallpaper, bed linen, fabrics... and made a huge fortune, there may be another to be made here.
After all, there is now a generation that knows nothing of the impact Holden had on their parents and grandparents and they, too, may be hungry for a good dollop of nostalgia.
On the other hand, that particular cow may already have been milked.
David Chapman
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