The Gentle Art of Domesticity: Stitching, Baking, Nature, Art & the Comforts of Home - Jane Brocket

The Gentle Art of Domesticity: Stitching, Baking, Nature, Art & the Comforts of Home - Jane Brocket

Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2008

Hardcover

Excellent condition with plastic protective wrap.

This book of wonder is the marvellous Jane Brockets The Gentle Art of Domesticity, which is written with the same blend of passion, zeal and comforting, gentle reassurance Jane exudes in person. Split into a variety of sections, the book is formed of short essays on a myriad of domestically themed topics, from baking fairy cakes, to knitting tea cosies, to enjoying nature, to reading, to films, to paintings and the simple joy of eating chocolate. It highlights the small pleasures of a life well lived; of spending time with family, of passing on traditional skills, of filling a home with the smell of fresh baked bread, of curling up under a homemade quilt with a cup of tea and a Dorothy Whipple novel, and of noticing the colours and patterns and textures of everyday life. Jane takes things most of us wouldnt normally notice, like a row of daffodils outside her window, or the way the afternoon light hits the windowsill in her kitchen, and uses it as a point of inspiration. The home, rather than a place of oppression, as many feminists would have women believe, becomes a place of light and laughter and love and freedom, where a woman can express her creativity, her passions, and her personality, in a variety of different ways.

It is such a wonderful book to come home to. It reminds me of the pleasures of a simple life...