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Cultivating Delight: A Natural History Of My Garden (Paperback)

by Diane Ackerman (Author) "I plan my garden as I wish I could plan my life, with islands of surprise, color, and scent ..." (more)

4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (Sep 30 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060505362
ISBN-13: 978-0060505363
Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 16.5 x 1.7 cm
Shipping Weight: 223 g

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #53,252 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories:
#11 in Books > Home & Garden > Gardening & Horticulture > Essays
#55 in Books > Science > Nature & Ecology > Essays
#56 in Books > Outdoors & Nature > Nature Writing

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Product Description

From Amazon.com

Diane Ackerman relishes the world of her garden. As a poet, she finds within it an endless field of metaphors. As a naturalist, she notices each small, miraculous detail: the hummingbirds and their routines, the showy tulips, the crazy yellow forsythia. Of visiting deer she writes, "I love watching the deer, which always arrive like magic or a miracle or the answer to an unasked question."

In her popular book A Natural History of the Senses, Ackerman celebrates the human body; in A Natural History of My Garden, she turns her attention to the world outside the body, outside the human sphere. Structured by seasons, this is a book of subtle shifts, but the reader never feels lost. Her prose is so welcoming, at times it feels like she's talking directly to you, although her lush, poetic language is the opposite of speech.

Distracted urban readers craving a book that will transport them would do well to spend time immersed in these pages, as will gardeners who've lost appreciation for their plot. Ackerman is a generous writer--a teacher who will share treasured, obscure passages from Beckett or Hawthorne. She's emotional and highly charged, and her descriptions are so clear they're small marvels. She's remarkable for her ability to find mystery everywhere. --Emily White --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In a generous and jauntily haphazard excursion through the four seasons of her Ithaca, N.Y., backyard landscape and the innumerable interests of her fertile mind, poet and naturalist Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses; A Natural History of Love) reprises her role as an enchanting intellectual sensualist. Her extensive flower (and even weed) beds provide both subject matter and metaphor. More interested in what a great garden does for a person's spirit and soul than in how to make it grow, Ackerman buzzes productively from idea to revelation to insight, lighting on topics as diverse as how roses are reminiscent of dolls' faces; why we see faces in nature; how plants, animals and humans are alike; whether plants have motives and instincts; how flowers protect themselves from both heat, aridity and freezing cold; and why women are more prone to hypothermia than men in just five paragraphs. She celebrates the diversity of weeds, finds beauty in chaos and order, embraces trial and error as a way of learning and respects the inevitable cycle of birth, death and rebirth. (Oct.)Forecast: With the success of her earlier works preceding her, and an eight-city author tour and 15-city NPR campaign to come, Ackerman's breezy philosophical lyricism should flourish amoang both garden enthusiasts and fans of encyclopedic curiosity.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
I plan my garden as I wish I could plan my life, with islands of surprise, color, and scent. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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	44% buy the item featured on this page: Cultivating Delight: A Natural History Of My Garden 4.0 out of 5 stars (21) CDN$ 13.13
	24% buy A Natural History of the Senses 4.4 out of 5 stars (41) CDN$ 13.10
	18% buy An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain 4.4 out of 5 stars (7) CDN$ 12.05
	8% buy A Natural History of Love: Author of the National Bestseller A Natural History of the Senses 4.2 out of 5 stars (13) CDN$ 15.33

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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars a gardener's deligh, May 23 2004

By A Customer

I read this book from the library and then bought it for myself because it is definitely a re-reading book. I have read it several times now and it amazes me every time. The depth of knowledge and the decriptions of her plants along with the distractions of her life are interesting, engaging and wonderful to read. Diane is one of my favorite authors but this book combines her scientific wordy writing style with one of my loves - plants and gardening. I read it when I'm sad and it reminds me of the wonders in the world and in my yard and neighborhood. I envy her spending so much time in her garden. I highly recommend it to plant people who like to read books besides the plant manuals that tell you how to grow things, enjoying the plants is the ultimate pleasure.

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4.0 out of 5 stars I loved it, and Im not even remotely a gardener, Feb 24 2004

By	Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Gardens. They're great, and I have a lovely one in my front yard. But I can claim exactly none of the credit. My style of gardening is to sit on the front steps chatting with Teri, my gardener, while she prunes the shrubs and tucks primroses and lobelia and cyclamen into the little bare spots.
But I love reading about people who DO enjoy gardening, and Diane Ackerman is a consummate writer on the subject. I've read The Moon by Whale Light and A Natural History of the Senses, two others of her several books, and find myself equally charmed by this one. It's a casual tour through the four seasons of her upstate backyard garden. But, as she's a naturalist, a poet, and a philosopher, she doesn't stop with just the plants; she uses the plants and their interdependent roles as metaphors to browse mentally through a wide variety of topics, including what gardens can do for people more than how people can tend a garden. It's like a role reversal of sorts. Some of the subjects that her free- and far-ranging mind roams over include: how we are like plants, plant's self-defense mechanisms, why we see faces in nature, etc. Her lyrical writing and vast, encyclopedic curiosity sometimes remind me of Annie Dillard's nature writing, a comparison that should be considered a compliment to both authors.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Stop and Smell the Words, Oct 21 2003

By A Customer

Previous reviewers, grumps and rhapsodics both, are pretty accurate in their review of this work. If you're looking for a lot of how-tos about gardening, you won't find them here. What you will find is someone who LOVES her garden, and loves reflecting on it. While the "hard labor" of gardening is something she is glad to hire other people to do for her, she revels in it's lovely blossoms and the wildlife who visit it. My husband was put off by her hiring out the hard work too, but all I could think was, "If I could afford it, I'd hire out the nasty stuff too"
I really don't think it is the author's intent to instruct us on how to garden, what she does is inform us, through her example, that delight can be found in many aspects of gardening. It is a zen-like philosophy; focus lovingly and intently on what you do.
While there are no earth shattering revelations here, Ms Ackerman's musings reminded me of poems I had forgotten, books I'd been meaning to read, and, yes, plants I'd been meaning to plant. While some may have a problem with this as an overall book, I can't imagine anyone objecting to it page-by-page. This may be one of those books to be read just a few pages at a time. Savor each page as you would a rose blossom, enjoy the loveliness of it, then move on.

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Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars A Natural History of Diane Ackerman
Well this is going to make me feel like a curmudgeon, since I can see that Diane Ackerman has a devoted following. Read more

Published on Oct 22 2002

4.0 out of 5 stars Stop and Smell the Roses
You can take whatever you'd like from Diane Ackerman's latest work, "Cultivating Delight- A Natural History of My Garden. Read more

Published on Jun 7 2002 by felisa finn

5.0 out of 5 stars A uniquely fascinating book,a literary treasure.
Smart, witty, informed, observant, funny, practical, and powerfully moving-- Ackerman combines all of these qualities in a book that's both superb natural history and stylish... Read more

Published on April 15 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich artistry, full of fascinations.
Somehow Ms. Ackerman manages to combine fascinating facts and lore, practical gardening wisdom, and a poet's sensibility. Read more

Published on Jan 16 2002