About this title: In the mid-1980s, Michael Pollan began gardening on the grounds of the old dairy farm he bought in Connecticut, a process that led to a series of musings on the troubled boundary between nature and contemporary life.
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780747533894ISBN:074753389X
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780747533894ISBN:074753389X
Description: Good. All orders are dispatched from our UK warehouse within one working day. Established in 2004. No quibble refund if not completely satisfied. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing plc
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780747533894ISBN:074753389X
Description: New. This is an account of one man's experience in his garden. The book invites an exploration of unexamined feelings about nature and the place of society in the landscape, and what gardening has to teach about the troubled borders between nature and culture. read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly imported from the UK using DHL or Royal Mail international mail WITH TRACKING NUMBER. Print on demand title. D elivery is typically 5-10 working days. Please do not select expedited shipping. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Laurel
Date Published: 1992-04-05
ISBN-13:9780440504405ISBN:0440504406
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Delta
Date Published: 1992-04-05
ISBN-13:9780385312660ISBN:0385312660
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Delta
Date Published: 1992-04-05
ISBN-13:9780385312660ISBN:0385312660
Description: Good. Excellent customer service. May ship from alternate location depending on your zip code and availability. Satisfaction guaranteed! ! read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly shipped from our UK warehouse using Royal Mail or DHL. International Priority mail for non-UK deliveries. Print on demand title. Delivery is typically 3-5 working days for UK delivery. Heavier or more expensive books are shipped with a TRACKING NUMBER. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
"One of Pollan's earlier titles, I started reading this because for the first time I was to create and tend to my own little 10x10 garden this year. I figured having another perspective on this would be nice.
The book follows Pollan's own thoughts and musings on gardening in America. The main theme is that too often there are extremes in the environmental debate. Either we steadfastly preserve "wilderness" or we bulldoze the forest and put up condos. Pollan puts forth the idea that there needs to be more exploration of the middle ground. A place where nature and culture do not collide, but work together: a garden. Viewed through this lens, Pollan takes on many different issues that are though provoking, from revisiting Thoreau and Emerson to American style lawns, and looking at the different philosophies of seed catalogs.
A fun and interesting read for anyone remotely interested in gardening, wilderness, and our societies perception of environmentalism."
"I love Michael Pollan's writing, but one of the things I love about it was the very thing that made this book so hard to finish. Pollan's writing style is dense and thoughtful. This can be a good thing when one is in the mood to read a dense and thoughtful text, but sometimes his observations can go on. I would have been better off owning this book, so I could pick it up and put it down intermittantly over a large amount of time. However, I requested it from the library which meant my time with it was quite short. I had to set reading goals to get through it, which I hated, because as far as I'm concerned prose this well written should be savored. So, a rare call to all to purchase this book, not to get it from the library."
"Subtitled A Gardener's Education, this book really deserves to be considered a modern classic in the field of gardening and environmental thinking. It's a beautifully written and engaging look at gardening, taking in the definition of gardens, their history and culture, the importance of the lawn to the North American identity, gardening philosophy and the social insights given by seed catalogues. It is also thought provoking about the relationship of the gardener with the wider natural world and the place of humankind within nature."
"In this book, Pollan attempts to find the happy medium between nature and culture in raising a garden. I identified so much with his struggles right from the start when he expressed his resistance to building a fence to keep a woodchuck out of his garden. Fences just don't seem part of the natural landscape, but really gardens aren't either. I also enjoyed reading his thoughts on the American lawn, and how much time and money people spend on them and why no one puts their vegetable gardens in their front yards. I could go on and on about all the things this book made me think about, but I'm having trouble putting it into words. In this book Pollan writes a lot about the proper role of humans in the natural world. How much we should attempt to control it, when we should let nature run it's course. As Pollan's musings tend to go, there is no simple answer, just a lot of general ideas.
I don't know if I would have enjoyed this book as much if I wasn't attempting to grow my own garden for the first time as well, and I'll admit that part of the reason I liked it was probably because I agreed with most of Pollan's ideas and I got to feel a little self-righteous along with Pollan about my theories of nature. Otherwise, I think the tone may have been a little annoying.
I thought the book was well written, but sometimes a little too flowery for my tastes."
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