Second Nature
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Product Description
Eight years ago, Harper’s Magazine editor Michael Pollan bought an ancient Connecticut dairy farm. He planted a garden and attempted to follow Thoreau’s example: do not impose your will upon the wilderness, the woodchucks, or the weeds. That ethic did not, of course, work. But neither did pesticides or firebombing the woodchuck burrow. So Michael Pollan started to reflect about the troubled limits between scenery and contemporary life.
The result is a amusing, profound, and perfectly written book in the finest tradition of American scenery writing. It inspires thoughts on the war of the roses; sex and class conflict in the garden; virtuous composting; the American lawn; seed catalogs, and the politics of planting a tree. A blend of meditation, autobiography, and social history, Second Scenery is ultimately a modern Walden: a right classic for our time.
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Even though the garden philosophy gets a small tiresome, the additional 90% of the book is educational and extremely appealing.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
That’s not entirely honest, but…this is a book of essays, not a natural history or farming book. It is about Pollan’s perceptions of scenery and landscape, through the gateway of his garden. He does only enough research to flesh out his musings with past fact and literary reference – and he is very selective. He leans heavily on Thoreau, and neglects wider erudition. His essays bog down in pedantic and pretentious language (he abuses at least one 5-syllable word per essay). The writing is much like Bill Bryson’s, about whom, I’m also kinda lukewarm. I didn’t like it, although there are excellent bits – the tale of his first rose plantings was appealing, and inspired me to drop a few snobby ancient roses in the sod.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
This book verbalized the fascination with farming as a form of human interaction with (and manipulation of) scenery. Appealing thoughts and entertaining tales!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I establish this book on the “giveaway” shelf of my apartment building and it turned out to be the best thing I’d read in about a year.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
One of my favorite all-time books. Brilliant thinking, wise perspective, superb writing
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5