Green Shingles: At the Edge of the Chesapeake Bay

In these leisurely essays, Svenson (Battlefield: Farming a Civil War Battleground, 1993) blends a cozy portrait of quotidian domesticity with an armchair tour of the Chesapeake Bay area's rich history. Two years ago, Svenson and his wife bought a house in Tolchester, Md., that was originally constructed as a summer bungalow in 1949. Entranced by their new home's perch on a 40-foot coastal bluff and the spectacular view of Chesapeake Bay, they overlooked the rundown condition of the house and several slapdash additions built by previous owners. Svenson gives readers dryly amusing accounts of the travails involved in hiring someone to build his garage. He also recounts his less than successful effort to exhibit his landscape paintings in the community. In addition to his own personal experience, he provides an engrossing history of the area, including Tolchester Park, formerly a ""pleasure garden"" containing a hotel, restaurants and an amusement park, which served as a highly regarded recreational area for Baltimore's white middle class during the first half of the century. Svenson writes with a quiet grace and is at his most eloquent when expressing his concern for the environment and for the effect of pollution on the delicate ecology of a landscape he is clearly determined to know and understand. (Feb.)