27 OCTOBER 1939, Page 34

Green Grows the City. By Beverley Nichols. (Cape. 7s. 6d.)

Green Grows the City is an account of how Mr. Beverley Nichols made the garden at the back of a house in Hamp- stead. It follows the formula of his earlier domestic chronicles. Interleaved with the chapters of practical advice (which read rather like gardening catalogues) are descriptions of fierce battles with neighbours, aesthetic ruminations, and accounts of the antics of cats. It is all couched in an " inti- mate " style, and if your private hero is Mr. Nichols, and you like reading about gardening, you will prefer it to the domestic chronicles of film stars which appear in cinema magazines.