Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
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List Price: $15.00
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Manufacturer: Grove Press
Written By: Michael Pollan
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 635
EAN: 9780802140111
Feature: ISBN13: 9780802140111
ISBN: 0802140114
Label: Grove Press
Manufacturer: Grove Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2003-08-12
Publisher: Grove Press
Studio: Grove Press
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Features
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ISBN13: 9780802140111
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Reviews for Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
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In his articles and in best-selling books such as The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan has established himself as one of our most important and beloved writers on modern man's place in the natural world. A new literary classic, Second Nature has become a manifesto not just for gardeners but for environmentalists everywhere. Chosen by the American Horticultural Society as one of the seventy-five greatest books ever written about gardening, Second Nature captures the rhythms of our everyday engagement with the outdoors in all its glory and exasperation. With chapters ranging from a reconsideration of the Great American Lawn, a dispatch from one man's war with a woodchuck, to an essay about the sexual politics of roses, Pollan has created a passionate and eloquent argument for reconceiving our relationship with nature.
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Consumer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Certainly not a how-to book
Comment: I find Second Nature to be primarily a treatise on urban
landscaping for homeowners--what to do with the land on which
your house sits. A very philosophical approach to gardening.
Customer Rating:
Summary: excellent
Comment: This book is a must read, a real page turner. Sit back with a cup of something to drink and soak this book in. Get cozy, you may not want to put it down for a while. Enjoy Pollens style of writing and his good natured humor. I myself enjoyed the battle with the woodchuck as I have done my time with maurading gophers in my day. There is often a moral deliema that comes with the territory of gardening. Pollen brings all that to light with a wonderful common sense and realistic approach while bringing a smile to our face. A book well worth the read, no need to rush through, just enjoy at your own pace. Maybe keep it beside the garden and enjoy while watering....
Customer Rating:
Summary: Early Pollan proves why he's where he is today
Comment: Who could have predicted that a young Michael Pollan writing about gardening would become a leading advocate for responsible agriculture and one of the country's biggest-selling writers? Just about anyone who read him then, is my guess. Pollan shows in this gem of a book what a terrific and layered writer he is.
For all the fantastic writing, the book, however, is uneven. Many of the chapters were published as magazine articles before the book came out, and it shows. The organization of the book by seasons is forced and the individual chapters in each section don't always belong. Pollan makes a good effort of tying it all together with memories of his grandfather's garden (and the characters of the grandfather and his garden in the beginning narrative are worth the price of admission), but in the end the individual narratives don't hold together as well as later Pollan books manage to do.
But don't let this stop you. Push through some of the more boring chapters (or skip them altogether, since the one advantage of the choppy nature of the book is that each chapter stands alone well), and you'll be rewarded with the absolute perfection of others. My favorite, the chapter about seed catalogs, is at once observational journalism, literary criticism, and writing master class.
If you came to this book the same way I did (which is to say, after reading Pollan's more recent work, including his magnum opus "The Omnivore's Dilemma"), I think you'll find enjoyment in seeing his earlier achievement as a writer, a science journalist, and a modern environmentalist. Don't miss it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderful picture of a garden
Comment: This is a book I wish I'd caught earlier - written in the late 80's, it displays the kind of writing that made Pollan famous. The combination of history, garden information, and good writing makes it a pleasure to follow Pollan's development of his property and his understanding of what makes his work 'gardening.'
I see gardens and landscaping differently after reading this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
Comment: My first exposure to Michael Pollan's writing was an article in the New York Times Magazine. I loved his writing style and his point of view. He made me think about the environment in ways that were totally new to me. I love those "aha" moments. Those "why didn't I think of that?" moments. And then my outlook on life and the world around me is subtly altered.
So it was with great anticipation that I oopened my copy of "Second Nature: A Gardener's Education". Michael Pollan on gardening. It doesn't get much better than that, right? Well, um, actually it does. I was expecting a completely new perspective on gardening. What I got was just another memoir of a beginning gardener. Admittedly, he does tell much more entertaining stories than most garden memoirists. No one who reads this book will ever forget his monumental battles with a woodchuck culminating in an attempt at incineration that very nearly incinerated the garden. Hilarious, but still quite ordinary. Can you think of a single garden memoir that doesn't contain a battle with a woodchuck? Just as Hollywood screenwriters use a predictable formula for their storylines, garden memoirists all stick to the same, tired outline: How I started gardening. How I made all the newbie mistakes my first year. How I tried to correct them. How I learned the "right" way to garden.
Disappointed, I soldiered on until Chapter 10 when I finally had the hoped for "why didn't I think of that?" moment. The story of the restoration of a woodland area in his town that had been destroyed by a tornado morphs into a discussion of restoration vs replacement vs allowing Nature to take its course and all of the consequences, intended and unintended, that could happen for each option. Now this is a book that I would like to read. The question of what time period a restoration should mimic is particularly intriguing. Colonial, after changes made by European settlers? Pre-Columbian? Taking into account the fact that the indigenous population also had a significant impact on the local ecology, should the area be restored to the state it was before the Native Americans arrived? These are questions that have never occurred to me when thinking about our altered landscape.
Ideally, I would have liked to see the "memoir" part of the book excised and this topic expanded. Where else in the US or even the world has this issue been addressed? What decisions were made and why? Was global warming taken into account? What provisions were made for non-native plant and animal introductions?
And then the book reverts right back to the standard memoir. The last two chapters are the obligatory catalog survey and "What my garden looks like now". Yawn.
I'm looking forward to reading more of Michael Pollan's books and his unique perspective. Even if it is only one or two chapters that grab me, they will be well worth it.
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