bookpagedev

FictionWorld Fiction

In search of her father’s past, Bijou finds herself

Review by bookpagedev

Six months after her father’s death, American-born Bijou Roy travels to India to scatter her Indian father’s ashes in the Hooghly River. Clutching a box containing her father’s remains, she wades in to fulfill a tradition she is not familiar with and does not fully understand.

The pages of Bijou Roy chronicle Bijou’s predicament: Conflicted by her parents’ deeply felt Indian principles and those of her own modern American lifestyle, Bijou struggles to carve out an identity. The book skips back and forth in time to reveal bits of Bijou’s upbringing, her relationship with her father and her ensuing grief over his death.

In Calcutta, Bijou meets family members and friends who serve as windows into her father’s past, particularly his involvement in the controversial Communist Naxalite movement. Naveen, the son of Bijou’s father’s closest comrade, befriends Bijou and aids in her understanding with photos, stories and long-lost letters he has collected for his own academic research. As Naveen and Bijou peel back the layers of the past during frequent walks through the vibrant city of Calcutta, a bond begins to develop.

Juggling a demanding boyfriend back home and combating serious jetlag and sensory overload, Bijou struggles. By the novel’s end, however, her time in Calcutta will afford her a much clearer picture of her heritage. Her father’s words return to her and serve as a guide for hard decisions ahead: “ ‘Better to furnish your mind [with] Truth. Justice. Love. Friendship.’ There was no fear of overcrowding your mind with abstracts, he told Bijou. Same principle applies to the heart.”

Six months after her father’s death, American-born Bijou Roy travels to India to scatter her Indian father’s ashes in the Hooghly River. Clutching a box containing her father’s remains, she wades in to fulfill a tradition she is not familiar with and does not fully…

Business & Finance

Colorful success

Review by bookpagedev

and What kind of job do I want? are perhaps some of the toughest decisions high school and college students will face. Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the bestseller What Color Is Your Parachute? and former director of the National Career Development Project, teams with career strategist Carol Christen to adapt Bolles’ revolutionary career guide into What Color Is Your Parachute? For Teens.

This approachable, inspirational guide first asks young adults to ponder their interests, skills, favorite types of people and ideal work environment through guided questions and discovery exercises. Once teens have identified their potential dream jobs, the authors suggest ways, such as extracurricular activities and job shadowing, to gain information about these career paths. For teens with little work experience, the final section on job-search basics, interviewing and the top 10 mistakes job hunters make and how you can avoid them is invaluable.

Bolles and Christen hold readers’ interest with quick tip and reality check boxes, profiles of successful 20-somethings, and websites to seek out further information. While they certainly want to see young adults find a successful job, the authors also hope that teenagers will see this guide as a tool for defining their futures. Angela Leeper is an educational consultant and freelance writer in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

and What kind of job do I want? are perhaps some of the toughest decisions high school and college students will face. Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the bestseller What Color Is Your Parachute? and former director of the National Career Development Project, teams with…
FictionHistorical Fiction

Music or motherhood?

Review by bookpagedev

Classic storytelling and a modern sensibility don’t always come in the same package. But readers luck out with The Doctor and the Diva, a story that touches all the old novelistic pulse points while offering keen insight on the evolving roles of women.

It helps if you, like this reader, enjoy opera, but nothing really interferes with the basic story: In the first few years of the 20th century, Erika, an aspiring opera singer, finds herself still childless after years in a loving marriage. Doctors have been unable to help Erika, but her husband Peter, a successful and adventurous botanist, consents to even more treatments by young, charismatic Dr. Ravell. Finally, with Erika on the verge of going to Italy to pursue her long-delayed career goals, Dr. Ravell produces results that leave them ecstatic—for seven months, at least. And not exactly in the way you’re thinking, either.

Based on a true story from the author’s family and letters that attest to it, this novel is powerful, especially considering the period in which it is set, with medical procedures that appear to modern readers as little more than primitive. Erika’s emotional struggle between fulfilling her musical dreams and being a loving mother are complicated by the physical and psychological limitations of the times, which can only lead to misunderstanding and bitterness.

Author Adrienne McDonnell has taught literature and fiction writing, and her talents shine in this debut. Her portrayal of multiple settings like Boston, Trinidad and Florence convey the deep feelings of her characters as well as historical fact, connecting all the deeper parts of the reader’s mind to her story.

The Doctor and the Diva is a book to treasure and recommend, far more than just a fleeting summer’s beach read.

 

Classic storytelling and a modern sensibility don’t always come in the same package. But readers luck out with The Doctor and the Diva, a story that touches all the old novelistic pulse points while offering keen insight on the evolving roles of women.

It helps…

Fiction

Rich boy, poor girl

Review by bookpagedev

At 528 pages, Rich Boy is a Space Age version of a Victorian family saga, with the great difference being that the family is not upper-class English but Philadelphia Jewish. Perhaps it is more apt to call this novel an inflated Great Gatsby, with Robert Vishniak climbing the socio-capitalist ladder all the way up and into the Bernie Madoff Manhattan era. Sharon Pomerantz is no Fitzgerald, nor is she a Dickens, but devoted readers of lengthy novels tend not to quibble.

The family expects favored son Robert to escape from their poor neighborhood and use his considerable charm and intelligence to move through prestigious New England schools into a room at the top, where he will hold his own with other Reagan-era financial wizards.  Pomerantz takes Robert through success in Wall Street buildings to the point when “the lobby looked like the cleanest of ghost towns.”

Inherent in all such high flights out of the slums is the problem of how to shuffle off the early self. There is always the chance one will happen to meet again the girl one left behind, the person who will reawaken the old self that did not especially want to pursue the rich and famous version of the American Dream. That’s what happens to Robert, who comes to see just how rich he was as a poor Jewish boy: “And for a moment, a strange and wonderful moment, Robert Vishniak knew where he belonged.”

Readers will enjoy this journey through the labyrinth of episodes of class conflicts, sexual escapades, financial schemes and, of course, romantic love that Pomerantz spent a decade constructing. Her publisher, Twelve, offers only 12 books each year, and they considered Rich Boy special enough to choose it as this year’s only novel. It is not to be missed.

 

At 528 pages, Rich Boy is a Space Age version of a Victorian family saga, with the great difference being that the family is not upper-class English but Philadelphia Jewish. Perhaps it is more apt to call this novel an inflated Great Gatsby, with Robert…

Mystery & SuspenseFiction

Caught up in the swift currents of time

Review by bookpagedev

“All this happened quite a few years ago.” With that unassuming, almost childlike opening sentence, Per Petterson introduces an evocative still-life portrait of the tender, difficult relationship between a mother and her adult son.

Set mainly in 1989 with flashbacks to the early 1970s, I Curse the River of Time—Petterson’s third novel to be published in English—traces a cancer-stricken woman’s journey from Norway to her childhood home in a windswept, seaside town in Denmark’s Jutland region. She’s followed there by her son Arvid Jensen, haunted by his impending divorce and the specter of his mother’s death. Arvid, a former Maoist who dropped out of college (over his mother’s fierce objection) to work in a printing plant as an idealistic demonstration of his solidarity with the working class, sees his youthful illusions dashed as the Communist empire collapses in Eastern Europe.

The novel’s title, drawn from a poem by Mao Zedong, introduces the theme of time’s inevitable passage that permeates the story. “The world unfolded in all its majesty,” Arvid thinks, “back in time, forward in time, history was one long river and we were all borne along by that river.” In a few fine brushstrokes, Petterson economically captures Arvid’s regret over the way lost time has robbed him of his chances to build an enduring emotional bond with his mother.

Petterson’s unaffected prose calls to mind Hemingway’s, and is especially well suited to both the novel’s autumnal Scandinavian setting and the tense interplay between Arvid and his mother. Even the story’s mostly quotidian moments—a parent’s 50th birthday party or a conversation between mother and son over Napoleon cakes and coffee—are roiled by powerful undercurrents of feeling. Petterson seems untroubled by any need to elaborate on the novel’s sometimes enigmatic events, like the moving scenes of Arvid’s younger brother on life support in an Oslo hospital or the relationship between Arvid’s mother and a Danish man named Hansen, but these omissions only serve to enhance its brooding tone.

With a body of work that’s attracting growing attention in this country, Per Petterson delivers novels that plumb the depths of character with tender insight. His latest, eloquent both in speech and in silence, is best read in the quiet hours of the night, when we’re most receptive to its meditative spell.

“All this happened quite a few years ago.” With that unassuming, almost childlike opening sentence, Per Petterson introduces an evocative still-life portrait of the tender, difficult relationship between a mother and her adult son.

Set mainly in 1989 with flashbacks to the early 1970s, I…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Conspiracies on steriods

Review by bookpagedev

FBI. CIA. LSD. JFK. USSR. If an acronym associated with the 1960s comes to mind, it’s likely to make an appearance in Shift. From acid-induced mind control to covert operations in Cuba, from a missing nuclear weapon to mass hallucinations, Shift runs a gamut that your inner conspiracy theorist will find delightful and provocative. Ever wonder if Timothy Leary was more than just a drug-addled ’60s cliché? Want to know who supplied JFK with his acid? All these, and many more, questions are considered with a wry aplomb that will keep skeptics on their toes and give the “what if” crowd enough ammunition for years to come.

Melchior, one of three “wise men” recruited by a CIA operative known as The Wiz, claws his way out of a newly sanctioned 1963 Cuba and back to his “Company” progenitors, only to find that he has been quietly swept under the rug and forgotten. Meanwhile, a Persian prostitute blackmailed by a CIA operative into giving various government targets covert doses of LSD finds that her latest mark—a career student with family ties in high places—holds the key to vast mental powers unlocked by the mind-altering properties of LSD. Add to this a freshly minted—and recently disenfranchised—FBI agent blindly seeking an answer to a question he doesn’t understand and you have the recipe for a massive, out-of-control conspiracy so unreal it almost sounds credible.

With its disparate but always converging narratives, reading Shift is like fighting a featherweight boxer. Always moving, constantly on its toes, it peppers you with small punches until, eventually, you succumb and it delivers the knockout. But oh, what a fight, and certainly one that is enjoyable and frenetic from start to finish. Written in deceptively simple language, luscious descriptions of everything from hallucinations to childhood memories to the fit of a dress on the Persian temptress spring from the page in a way that is evocative of the ’60s while also managing to stay out of the way of the sheer mania contained within the pages. For an engaging romp through the ’60s that never were, look no further than Shift.

 

FBI. CIA. LSD. JFK. USSR. If an acronym associated with the 1960s comes to mind, it’s likely to make an appearance in Shift. From acid-induced mind control to covert operations in Cuba, from a missing nuclear weapon to mass hallucinations, Shift runs a gamut that…

Fiction

The familial ties that bind

Review by bookpagedev

The dread that infuses Strangers at the Feast starts quietly. The Olson family is gathering for Thanksgiving—single daughter Ginny is hosting at her slightly rundown home in Westchester County. It’s the first time her parents, Eleanor and Gavin, will meet her newly adopted daughter from India. It’s also the first time they’ve seen her brother, Douglas, since the real-estate crash left him and his wife bordering on bankruptcy.

It’s a day fraught with the same potential as most family gatherings: hurt feelings, tipsy misunderstandings, sibling squabbles over long-simmering resentments. But what ultimately happens—after Ginny’s oven fails and the hungry, overwrought clan decides to move the party to Douglas’ opulent home in Greenwich—is much more sinister.

“My children are grown and healthy adults, thought Eleanor. I have beautiful grandchildren. She would thank the Lord that everyone was at peace, everything was in order. She could happily buy the groceries and weed the garden because everyone she cared about was well. But if someone were to try to threaten that? Was there a length to which a mother wouldn’t go?”

Eleanor discovers the answer to that question on Thanksgiving night: At the same time the Olsons are sitting down to eat, two teenagers are out on a mission of their own to right a terrible wrong they are sure Douglas’ company inflicted on their family.

Jennifer Vanderbes scored a Washington Post “Best Book of 2003” nod with her first novel, Easter Island. Her follow-up is every bit as compelling, a tour de force that traces the long history of two families’ decisions to their inevitable, chilling intersection. The richly drawn characters and vivid storytelling make Strangers at the Feast a must-read study of the lengths to which families will go in the face of unimaginable threats.

 

The dread that infuses Strangers at the Feast starts quietly. The Olson family is gathering for Thanksgiving—single daughter Ginny is hosting at her slightly rundown home in Westchester County. It’s the first time her parents, Eleanor and Gavin, will meet her newly adopted daughter from…

Arts & Culture

If these walls could talk

Review by bookpagedev

The princes and artists of the Italian Renaissance strove mightily to revive the glories of classical Greek and Roman culture. In one respect, they certainly hit the mark: Even the more outlandish of the Caesars had nothing on the colorful bunch of men who ascended to the papacy in those years, though most of the popes were a tad less likely to kill their relatives.

From the intellectual Nicholas V through the warrior Julius II and on to the Counterreformation popes, these were guys with big ideas. The biggest, at least in material terms, was tearing down the hallowed Basilica of St. Peter, dating to 326, and replacing it with the St. Peter’s that many today consider the architectural highpoint of the Roman Catholic Church. While Nicholas conceived the idea around 1450, it was Julius who laid the first stone of the new church on April 18, 1506 500 years ago. To mark that anniversary, author R.A. Scotti has written Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal, Building St. Peter’s, a brisk and satisfying narrative history of the two-century building project that involved a procession of hero-artists: Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini. Raphael was a young man during his brief tenure running the project, but Scotti makes it clear that it was old men in a hurry who really drove the work forward. That was particularly true of the storied dome, an engineering marvel. Scotti writes of Bramante setting the foundation piers that made the Basilica his own, Michelangelo approaching his 89th year and staving off death to assure that his dome would crown the mother church, [Pope] Sixtus V holding his architects to a frenzied schedule. By the time Bernini put the finishing touches on the basilica in the mid-17th century, the world of the Roman Church had changed. The project itself helped trigger the Reformation, as Martin Luther protested what he perceived as the popes’ outrageous fundraising to pay its massive expense. The popes who followed responded aggressively, in part with the crowd-pleasing Baroque style that Bernini’s work epitomized. Combining as it does Renaissance brilliance and Baroque drama, Scotti writes, the Basilica was truly catholic. Anne Bartlett is a journalist in Washington, D.C.

 

The princes and artists of the Italian Renaissance strove mightily to revive the glories of classical Greek and Roman culture. In one respect, they certainly hit the mark: Even the more outlandish of the Caesars had nothing on the colorful bunch of men who…

LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Adventures of a suburban gardener

Review by bookpagedev

I kind of wanted to despise Dominique Browning. She is the pale-blue-eyed editor of House ∧ Garden magazine, she has a fabulous house, she has a fantastic garden. And she’s named Dominique, for heaven’s sake. How glamorous is that? But you know, life is complicated, and nobody is perfect. In the course of reading Paths of Desire: The Passions of a Suburban Gardener, it becomes clear that Browning has had her share of mishaps and troubles, not least of which was the collapse of an old wall on her beloved perennial border. This is where Paths of Desire begins, and by the time I finished this story of a garden and its gardener, I was rooting for this funny woman. This is a gardening adventure story set among the intrigues of suburban New York. Will the tree man save the pin oak? Who’s been rooting around in the hostas? Browning’s travails will resonate with every suburbanite longing for a little order in the back yard.

I kind of wanted to despise Dominique Browning. She is the pale-blue-eyed editor of House ∧ Garden magazine, she has a fabulous house, she has a fantastic garden. And she's named Dominique, for heaven's sake. How glamorous is that? But you know, life is complicated,…
LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Impatient patience

Review by bookpagedev

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can’t help but get outside and dig something. The last frost doesn’t come until mid-April, but that never stops me from putting some little thing out that would have preferred to stay inside. I am very, very impatient. This year a number of books are helping me take a breath, step back, and find patience in waiting for the seasons to change. I have enjoyed the work of Ken Druse for many years. His first book, The Nat-ural Garden, was a revelation, filled with pictures of places that hardly looked like “gardens” at all. Artful jungles is more like it. Druse is not trimming topiary; he is creating subtle, elegant gardens that feel like they were planted by Mother Nature herself. He is all about staying close to the place you are gardening: use native plants, be sensitive to the microclimate of your property, remember nature. Each book he writes is an occasion for joy, and his new book, The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime (Clarkson Potter, $50, 256 pages, ISBN 0517707888) is his most joyful yet.

Druse has covered a lot of technical ground in his previous books, the “what” of gardening. Here he focuses on the ineffable “why”: what is it that draws people to the garden? He introduces us to gardeners who share his passion for gardening as a lifelong pursuit. A varied group of gardens (one with a topiary, even!) is at the heart of this book, each photographed in a beautiful, careful way. At the core of these gardens is a lot of knowledge and talent and vision. But most of all, there is a passion an infectious kind of love that will inspire all of us who love to make gardens.

Dutch treat Cousins to Ken Druse might be Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, a renowned pair of gardeners from the Netherlands who are getting a lot of attention for their idea of the natural garden. For the past 20 years, they have scoured Europe and the United States for plants that are sturdy and low maintenance, but have the beautiful appearance of familiar cultivated perennials and annuals. Their gardens have the same looseness and unmanicured appearance that Ken Druse’s have. Planting the Natural Garden (Timber, $34.95, 144 pages, ISBN 088192606X) is their magnum opus of plants a Hall of Fame listing of their time-tested favorites. Included are cultivation details and photographs of each plant, along with suggested combinations and planting diagrams. Anyone who longs to move beyond the basics will marvel at this book for its fresh notion of a natural garden that holds up without looking weedy.

The basics? Begin here I am a Taylor’s junkie. When I first got serious about gardening 10 years ago, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening was my bible. If Taylor’s liked a plant, so did I. If it wasn’t in Taylor’s, it wasn’t in my garden.

The latest Taylor’s Guide a whopper as big as the Master Guide continues the same concise, clear format that has helped me so much. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants (Houghton Mifflin, $45, 447 pages, ISBN 0618226443) is filled with more than 1,200 plants: perennials, annuals, grasses, trees, shrubs. It’s not every plant ever propagated; it’s every plant that the Taylor’s Guide experts feel is a good choice for North American gardens. A plant encyclopedia can be many things: a reference, a wish book, a troubleshooter. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is all these, produced in the most straightforward, lovely way possible.

One small note: Taylor’s gives the pronunciation of each plant, which is a merciful thing when you are trying to sound all smart and name that little blue flower but can’t figure out how to say “platycodon.” (It’s “plat-ee-KOE-don.”) Getting the yard you want The only television channels safe to watch anymore are the Food Network and HGTV. The worst beating you’ll see on Emeril Live is a meringue in process; the most violent act on Landscapers Challenge is the brutal ripping-out of a crummy deck. The landscaping shows on HGTV are mesmerizing, the sort of armchair gardening that is perfect for those evenings when you have had it with your own plot of land. Those enterprising HGTVers have now turned to books, and there’s much to absorb in Landscape Makeovers: 50 Projects for a Picture-Perfect Yard (Meredith, $19.95, 224 pages, ISBN 0696217643), edited by Marilyn Rogers.

This book gives the details of projects you may have seen on HGTV programs. Curb appeal, privacy, overcoming problem areas there are tons of ideas in here to help make your landscape beautiful. Each project is rated in difficulty, time, cost and skills required. Landscape Makeovers is as satisfying as a night watching HGTV. Unlike the shows, however, this book explains exactly how to achieve the results you want. In this book, all seems possible.

The ultimate in patience Sometimes, impatience is bad for the environment. Terrible, in fact. Now that I have read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla, I promise I will never spray my roses again with that toxic, brain-eating stuff. It only takes a few minutes to pick off those Japanese beetles, and all the good bugs in my garden will thank me.

Denckla is such a gentle advocate for organic gardening that you can’t help but want to try it, too. There is nothing shrill or dogmatic about the way she explains her subject. She debunks all the myths of organic gardening (it’s expensive/difficult/time consuming) with sensible truths, and the result is this manifesto of how to grow food that is in tune with nature.

In the book, Denckla reveals her own evolution as an organic gardener. Wanting to learn about the old ways, she began collecting information, and after four years, she discovered she had a book. A wonderful one, in fact. She explains how to grow every imaginable vegetable, nut and fruit, explaining the importance of rotating crops, planting a diverse garden and growing certain plant allies near each other. There’s a rogues’ gallery of evil pests, with non-toxic remedies; a list of plants that grow well together allies; and appendices full of organic gardening standards and resources. You will learn a lot with this book, and it may change the way you treat your garden.

A soggy epilogue At the end of Ken Druse’s Passion for Gardening is a stunning photograph of his garden, his beloved garden, flooded by the river that runs beside it. However traumatic this was for him (it had to be akin to Hemingway losing a manuscript), he writes about it with equanimity. I am taking to heart his conclusion: “I am indeed the junior partner in this collaboration with nature” a partnership that requires nothing but patience. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage. She tends her garden in Nashville.

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can't help but get outside and dig something.…
LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Impatient patience

Review by bookpagedev

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can’t help but get outside and dig something. The last frost doesn’t come until mid-April, but that never stops me from putting some little thing out that would have preferred to stay inside. I am very, very impatient. This year a number of books are helping me take a breath, step back, and find patience in waiting for the seasons to change. I have enjoyed the work of Ken Druse for many years. His first book, The Nat-ural Garden, was a revelation, filled with pictures of places that hardly looked like “gardens” at all. Artful jungles is more like it. Druse is not trimming topiary; he is creating subtle, elegant gardens that feel like they were planted by Mother Nature herself. He is all about staying close to the place you are gardening: use native plants, be sensitive to the microclimate of your property, remember nature. Each book he writes is an occasion for joy, and his new book, The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime (Clarkson Potter, $50, 256 pages, ISBN 0517707888) is his most joyful yet.

Druse has covered a lot of technical ground in his previous books, the “what” of gardening. Here he focuses on the ineffable “why”: what is it that draws people to the garden? He introduces us to gardeners who share his passion for gardening as a lifelong pursuit. A varied group of gardens (one with a topiary, even!) is at the heart of this book, each photographed in a beautiful, careful way. At the core of these gardens is a lot of knowledge and talent and vision. But most of all, there is a passion an infectious kind of love that will inspire all of us who love to make gardens.

Dutch treat Cousins to Ken Druse might be Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, a renowned pair of gardeners from the Netherlands who are getting a lot of attention for their idea of the natural garden. For the past 20 years, they have scoured Europe and the United States for plants that are sturdy and low maintenance, but have the beautiful appearance of familiar cultivated perennials and annuals. Their gardens have the same looseness and unmanicured appearance that Ken Druse’s have. Planting the Natural Garden (Timber, $34.95, 144 pages, ISBN 088192606X) is their magnum opus of plants a Hall of Fame listing of their time-tested favorites. Included are cultivation details and photographs of each plant, along with suggested combinations and planting diagrams. Anyone who longs to move beyond the basics will marvel at this book for its fresh notion of a natural garden that holds up without looking weedy.

The basics? Begin here I am a Taylor’s junkie. When I first got serious about gardening 10 years ago, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening was my bible. If Taylor’s liked a plant, so did I. If it wasn’t in Taylor’s, it wasn’t in my garden.

The latest Taylor’s Guide a whopper as big as the Master Guide continues the same concise, clear format that has helped me so much. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants (Houghton Mifflin, $45, 447 pages, ISBN 0618226443) is filled with more than 1,200 plants: perennials, annuals, grasses, trees, shrubs. It’s not every plant ever propagated; it’s every plant that the Taylor’s Guide experts feel is a good choice for North American gardens. A plant encyclopedia can be many things: a reference, a wish book, a troubleshooter. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is all these, produced in the most straightforward, lovely way possible.

One small note: Taylor’s gives the pronunciation of each plant, which is a merciful thing when you are trying to sound all smart and name that little blue flower but can’t figure out how to say “platycodon.” (It’s “plat-ee-KOE-don.”) Getting the yard you want The only television channels safe to watch anymore are the Food Network and HGTV. The worst beating you’ll see on Emeril Live is a meringue in process; the most violent act on Landscapers Challenge is the brutal ripping-out of a crummy deck. The landscaping shows on HGTV are mesmerizing, the sort of armchair gardening that is perfect for those evenings when you have had it with your own plot of land. Those enterprising HGTVers have now turned to books, and there’s much to absorb in Landscape Makeovers: 50 Projects for a Picture-Perfect Yard, edited by Marilyn Rogers.

This book gives the details of projects you may have seen on HGTV programs. Curb appeal, privacy, overcoming problem areas there are tons of ideas in here to help make your landscape beautiful. Each project is rated in difficulty, time, cost and skills required. Landscape Makeovers is as satisfying as a night watching HGTV. Unlike the shows, however, this book explains exactly how to achieve the results you want. In this book, all seems possible.

The ultimate in patience Sometimes, impatience is bad for the environment. Terrible, in fact. Now that I have read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla (Storey, $22.95, 484 pages, ISBN 1580173705), I promise I will never spray my roses again with that toxic, brain-eating stuff. It only takes a few minutes to pick off those Japanese beetles, and all the good bugs in my garden will thank me.

Denckla is such a gentle advocate for organic gardening that you can’t help but want to try it, too. There is nothing shrill or dogmatic about the way she explains her subject. She debunks all the myths of organic gardening (it’s expensive/difficult/time consuming) with sensible truths, and the result is this manifesto of how to grow food that is in tune with nature.

In the book, Denckla reveals her own evolution as an organic gardener. Wanting to learn about the old ways, she began collecting information, and after four years, she discovered she had a book. A wonderful one, in fact. She explains how to grow every imaginable vegetable, nut and fruit, explaining the importance of rotating crops, planting a diverse garden and growing certain plant allies near each other. There’s a rogues’ gallery of evil pests, with non-toxic remedies; a list of plants that grow well together allies; and appendices full of organic gardening standards and resources. You will learn a lot with this book, and it may change the way you treat your garden.

A soggy epilogue At the end of Ken Druse’s Passion for Gardening is a stunning photograph of his garden, his beloved garden, flooded by the river that runs beside it. However traumatic this was for him (it had to be akin to Hemingway losing a manuscript), he writes about it with equanimity. I am taking to heart his conclusion: “I am indeed the junior partner in this collaboration with nature” a partnership that requires nothing but patience. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage. She tends her garden in Nashville.

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can't help but get outside and dig something.…
LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Impatient patience

Review by bookpagedev

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can’t help but get outside and dig something. The last frost doesn’t come until mid-April, but that never stops me from putting some little thing out that would have preferred to stay inside. I am very, very impatient. This year a number of books are helping me take a breath, step back, and find patience in waiting for the seasons to change. I have enjoyed the work of Ken Druse for many years. His first book, The Nat-ural Garden, was a revelation, filled with pictures of places that hardly looked like “gardens” at all. Artful jungles is more like it. Druse is not trimming topiary; he is creating subtle, elegant gardens that feel like they were planted by Mother Nature herself. He is all about staying close to the place you are gardening: use native plants, be sensitive to the microclimate of your property, remember nature. Each book he writes is an occasion for joy, and his new book, The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime (Clarkson Potter, $50, 256 pages, ISBN 0517707888) is his most joyful yet.

Druse has covered a lot of technical ground in his previous books, the “what” of gardening. Here he focuses on the ineffable “why”: what is it that draws people to the garden? He introduces us to gardeners who share his passion for gardening as a lifelong pursuit. A varied group of gardens (one with a topiary, even!) is at the heart of this book, each photographed in a beautiful, careful way. At the core of these gardens is a lot of knowledge and talent and vision. But most of all, there is a passion an infectious kind of love that will inspire all of us who love to make gardens.

Dutch treat Cousins to Ken Druse might be Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, a renowned pair of gardeners from the Netherlands who are getting a lot of attention for their idea of the natural garden. For the past 20 years, they have scoured Europe and the United States for plants that are sturdy and low maintenance, but have the beautiful appearance of familiar cultivated perennials and annuals. Their gardens have the same looseness and unmanicured appearance that Ken Druse’s have. Planting the Natural Garden (Timber, $34.95, 144 pages, ISBN 088192606X) is their magnum opus of plants a Hall of Fame listing of their time-tested favorites. Included are cultivation details and photographs of each plant, along with suggested combinations and planting diagrams. Anyone who longs to move beyond the basics will marvel at this book for its fresh notion of a natural garden that holds up without looking weedy.

The basics? Begin here I am a Taylor’s junkie. When I first got serious about gardening 10 years ago, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening was my bible. If Taylor’s liked a plant, so did I. If it wasn’t in Taylor’s, it wasn’t in my garden.

The latest Taylor’s Guide a whopper as big as the Master Guide continues the same concise, clear format that has helped me so much. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is filled with more than 1,200 plants: perennials, annuals, grasses, trees, shrubs. It’s not every plant ever propagated; it’s every plant that the Taylor’s Guide experts feel is a good choice for North American gardens. A plant encyclopedia can be many things: a reference, a wish book, a troubleshooter. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is all these, produced in the most straightforward, lovely way possible.

One small note: Taylor’s gives the pronunciation of each plant, which is a merciful thing when you are trying to sound all smart and name that little blue flower but can’t figure out how to say “platycodon.” (It’s “plat-ee-KOE-don.”) Getting the yard you want The only television channels safe to watch anymore are the Food Network and HGTV. The worst beating you’ll see on Emeril Live is a meringue in process; the most violent act on Landscapers Challenge is the brutal ripping-out of a crummy deck. The landscaping shows on HGTV are mesmerizing, the sort of armchair gardening that is perfect for those evenings when you have had it with your own plot of land. Those enterprising HGTVers have now turned to books, and there’s much to absorb in Landscape Makeovers: 50 Projects for a Picture-Perfect Yard (Meredith, $19.95, 224 pages, ISBN 0696217643), edited by Marilyn Rogers.

This book gives the details of projects you may have seen on HGTV programs. Curb appeal, privacy, overcoming problem areas there are tons of ideas in here to help make your landscape beautiful. Each project is rated in difficulty, time, cost and skills required. Landscape Makeovers is as satisfying as a night watching HGTV. Unlike the shows, however, this book explains exactly how to achieve the results you want. In this book, all seems possible.

The ultimate in patience Sometimes, impatience is bad for the environment. Terrible, in fact. Now that I have read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla (Storey, $22.95, 484 pages, ISBN 1580173705), I promise I will never spray my roses again with that toxic, brain-eating stuff. It only takes a few minutes to pick off those Japanese beetles, and all the good bugs in my garden will thank me.

Denckla is such a gentle advocate for organic gardening that you can’t help but want to try it, too. There is nothing shrill or dogmatic about the way she explains her subject. She debunks all the myths of organic gardening (it’s expensive/difficult/time consuming) with sensible truths, and the result is this manifesto of how to grow food that is in tune with nature.

In the book, Denckla reveals her own evolution as an organic gardener. Wanting to learn about the old ways, she began collecting information, and after four years, she discovered she had a book. A wonderful one, in fact. She explains how to grow every imaginable vegetable, nut and fruit, explaining the importance of rotating crops, planting a diverse garden and growing certain plant allies near each other. There’s a rogues’ gallery of evil pests, with non-toxic remedies; a list of plants that grow well together allies; and appendices full of organic gardening standards and resources. You will learn a lot with this book, and it may change the way you treat your garden.

A soggy epilogue At the end of Ken Druse’s Passion for Gardening is a stunning photograph of his garden, his beloved garden, flooded by the river that runs beside it. However traumatic this was for him (it had to be akin to Hemingway losing a manuscript), he writes about it with equanimity. I am taking to heart his conclusion: “I am indeed the junior partner in this collaboration with nature” a partnership that requires nothing but patience. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage. She tends her garden in Nashville.

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can't help but get outside and dig something.…
LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Impatient patience

Review by bookpagedev

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can’t help but get outside and dig something. The last frost doesn’t come until mid-April, but that never stops me from putting some little thing out that would have preferred to stay inside. I am very, very impatient. This year a number of books are helping me take a breath, step back, and find patience in waiting for the seasons to change. I have enjoyed the work of Ken Druse for many years. His first book, The Nat-ural Garden, was a revelation, filled with pictures of places that hardly looked like “gardens” at all. Artful jungles is more like it. Druse is not trimming topiary; he is creating subtle, elegant gardens that feel like they were planted by Mother Nature herself. He is all about staying close to the place you are gardening: use native plants, be sensitive to the microclimate of your property, remember nature. Each book he writes is an occasion for joy, and his new book, The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime (Clarkson Potter, $50, 256 pages, ISBN 0517707888) is his most joyful yet.

Druse has covered a lot of technical ground in his previous books, the “what” of gardening. Here he focuses on the ineffable “why”: what is it that draws people to the garden? He introduces us to gardeners who share his passion for gardening as a lifelong pursuit. A varied group of gardens (one with a topiary, even!) is at the heart of this book, each photographed in a beautiful, careful way. At the core of these gardens is a lot of knowledge and talent and vision. But most of all, there is a passion an infectious kind of love that will inspire all of us who love to make gardens.

Dutch treat Cousins to Ken Druse might be Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, a renowned pair of gardeners from the Netherlands who are getting a lot of attention for their idea of the natural garden. For the past 20 years, they have scoured Europe and the United States for plants that are sturdy and low maintenance, but have the beautiful appearance of familiar cultivated perennials and annuals. Their gardens have the same looseness and unmanicured appearance that Ken Druse’s have. Planting the Natural Garden is their magnum opus of plants a Hall of Fame listing of their time-tested favorites. Included are cultivation details and photographs of each plant, along with suggested combinations and planting diagrams. Anyone who longs to move beyond the basics will marvel at this book for its fresh notion of a natural garden that holds up without looking weedy.

The basics? Begin here I am a Taylor’s junkie. When I first got serious about gardening 10 years ago, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening was my bible. If Taylor’s liked a plant, so did I. If it wasn’t in Taylor’s, it wasn’t in my garden.

The latest Taylor’s Guide a whopper as big as the Master Guide continues the same concise, clear format that has helped me so much. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants (Houghton Mifflin, $45, 447 pages, ISBN 0618226443) is filled with more than 1,200 plants: perennials, annuals, grasses, trees, shrubs. It’s not every plant ever propagated; it’s every plant that the Taylor’s Guide experts feel is a good choice for North American gardens. A plant encyclopedia can be many things: a reference, a wish book, a troubleshooter. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is all these, produced in the most straightforward, lovely way possible.

One small note: Taylor’s gives the pronunciation of each plant, which is a merciful thing when you are trying to sound all smart and name that little blue flower but can’t figure out how to say “platycodon.” (It’s “plat-ee-KOE-don.”) Getting the yard you want The only television channels safe to watch anymore are the Food Network and HGTV. The worst beating you’ll see on Emeril Live is a meringue in process; the most violent act on Landscapers Challenge is the brutal ripping-out of a crummy deck. The landscaping shows on HGTV are mesmerizing, the sort of armchair gardening that is perfect for those evenings when you have had it with your own plot of land. Those enterprising HGTVers have now turned to books, and there’s much to absorb in Landscape Makeovers: 50 Projects for a Picture-Perfect Yard (Meredith, $19.95, 224 pages, ISBN 0696217643), edited by Marilyn Rogers.

This book gives the details of projects you may have seen on HGTV programs. Curb appeal, privacy, overcoming problem areas there are tons of ideas in here to help make your landscape beautiful. Each project is rated in difficulty, time, cost and skills required. Landscape Makeovers is as satisfying as a night watching HGTV. Unlike the shows, however, this book explains exactly how to achieve the results you want. In this book, all seems possible.

The ultimate in patience Sometimes, impatience is bad for the environment. Terrible, in fact. Now that I have read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla (Storey, $22.95, 484 pages, ISBN 1580173705), I promise I will never spray my roses again with that toxic, brain-eating stuff. It only takes a few minutes to pick off those Japanese beetles, and all the good bugs in my garden will thank me.

Denckla is such a gentle advocate for organic gardening that you can’t help but want to try it, too. There is nothing shrill or dogmatic about the way she explains her subject. She debunks all the myths of organic gardening (it’s expensive/difficult/time consuming) with sensible truths, and the result is this manifesto of how to grow food that is in tune with nature.

In the book, Denckla reveals her own evolution as an organic gardener. Wanting to learn about the old ways, she began collecting information, and after four years, she discovered she had a book. A wonderful one, in fact. She explains how to grow every imaginable vegetable, nut and fruit, explaining the importance of rotating crops, planting a diverse garden and growing certain plant allies near each other. There’s a rogues’ gallery of evil pests, with non-toxic remedies; a list of plants that grow well together allies; and appendices full of organic gardening standards and resources. You will learn a lot with this book, and it may change the way you treat your garden.

A soggy epilogue At the end of Ken Druse’s Passion for Gardening is a stunning photograph of his garden, his beloved garden, flooded by the river that runs beside it. However traumatic this was for him (it had to be akin to Hemingway losing a manuscript), he writes about it with equanimity. I am taking to heart his conclusion: “I am indeed the junior partner in this collaboration with nature” a partnership that requires nothing but patience. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage. She tends her garden in Nashville.

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can't help but get outside and dig something.…

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