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In Kiltumper

A Year in an Irish Garden

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In Kiltumper

By: Niall Williams, Christine Breen
Narrated by: Christine Breen, Niall Williams
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Bloomsbury presents In Kiltumper by Niall Williams and Christine Breen, read by Niall Williams and Christine Breen.

Poignant ... A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature' IRISH TIMES

When they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave New York City and move to Christine’s ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth.

In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the surrounding land threatened by the arrival of turbines, Niall and Christine decided to document a year – in words and Christine's drawings – of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month by month through the year, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours, and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.©2023 Niall Williams (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Environment Gardening & Horticulture Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science Gardening
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Critic reviews

Moving and surprisingly provocative ... This couple's narrative is more than a January-December chronicle, it is the result of decades of care ... In Kiltumper is as much a book about the cherishing of a marriage as it is about the love of a place ... A heartfelt paean to a disappearing way of life (Dominique Browning)
A record, both honest and beautiful, of a sustainable but precarious way of life (Claire Connolly)
Poignant ... A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature (Brian Maye)
Beautifully written ... A wonderfully lyrical and uplifting read (Dermot Bolger)
An absorbing and thought-provoking read (Diarmuid Gavin)
An intimate, meditative garden memoir (Hilary White)
While the events chronicled rarely move beyond the garden, and while the descriptions are so intimate they almost elicit grief for the dying cherry tree and spark exhortations to the dahlias to hold on to their heavy heads, it is the gardeners’ personalities that bloom (Caroline O'Doherty)
The small Kiltumper acreage is detailed with a sense of wonder and of pleasure ... Chapter after chapter is enhanced with exquisite pencil drawings ... Frequently quotable, always eloquent ... This is a book full of joy, warmly rich with accomplishment and wonder and a strong sense of mutual commitment (Mary Leland)
Arresting ... Remarkable ... This book, in Seamus Heaney's phrase, catches the heart off guard ... Uncommonly magical ... Read it and be restored to yourself (Cahir O'Doherty)
I loved their two voices, truthful and gentle and generous, so full of care for their land and for each other ... A record of how deeply life can be lived within a garden's walls (GEORGINA HARDING)
A beautiful story, with words at once uplifting and poignant. Full of the acceptance and the optimism that only a garden and the act of caring for it brings (JO THOMPSON)
I read it with enormous pleasure … There were so many episodes I loved, whether they were heartbreaking or uplifting … It was a delight to step into Niall and Christine’s precious garden, into the rhythms of their way of living, and to be refreshed (TIM PEARS)
This is a book to whet one’s appetite — for reading, writing, gardening — and living. I loved the counterpoint of the two voices as they face age, cancer, the struggle to write, to garden — to keep at it — under the threat of wind turbines and the wild Atlantic wind; not to give up. A triumph (Katherine Swift)
A celebration of life in rural Ireland
Including beautiful pen and ink drawings by Christine, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders
All stars
Most relevant
Although this is about their garden, this book is also about their life together, the future of the countryside. About writing and living, about being human. wonderfully narrated, I felt I knew Niall and Christine and by the end was sad to say goodbye to them yet curious as to their next chapter in their lives. A wonderful listen, i shall buy the book for my sons girlfriend for her 30th. She is not a gardener but I feel this book may make her one!

not just for gardeners

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I have loved listening to the authors read their work and have felt in the company of plants and birds as I have listened. Thank you. I feel nurtured and nourished through the listening.

Beautiful

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I love everything about this book. The gentleness of it lands so beautifully inside me.

Magnificent

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