Second Nature - Michael Pollan

I really enjoyed this book. It's an incredibly literate and thoughtful discussion of gardening, of gardening as metaphor, and of our relationship to the natural world. When I first opened it, I thought it was going to be just like The $64 Tomato (which lists it in the bibliography), but it turned out to be far more reaching than that. Pollan talks about different cultural approaches to gardening - the European version versus the American version, the colonial American version versus the modern American version - in a way that is eye-opening. He talks about the relationship literary greats like Emerson, Thoreau, and Shakespeare had to the natural world, and how their writings affect our cultural views.

I only recommend books that I like on this blog, but some are four-star books and some are five-star books. This is a five-star book. I want to buttonhole everyone I know (especially, but not only, gardeners) and say: You have got to read this book.

Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
Michael Pollan
1991
Available from Amazon