PERCH HILL A New Life

PERCH HILL is a memoir of Adam Nicolson's stewardship of a run-down farm in Sussex, which he bought when fleeing various kinds of professional and personal disarray. No doubt intended to fit the niche exploited so amusingly by Peter Mayle in his Provence books, this book is about as complaining, resentful, and charmless by contrast as can be imagined. Nicolson is the son of writer and publisher Nigel Nicolson and grandson of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. He can write all right, but that doesn't make him a pleasant armchair companion. The fact that the book is well and sensitively read by Raymond Sawyer does not help nearly enough. B.G. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 01]