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Zusatztext “One of those dangerous reference works that you reach for at a moment of horticultural crisis or indecision only to find yourself an hour later browsing far beyond the page where you began.” — The New Yorker “You do not have to be a good gardener to fall in love with Green Thoughts. It reads with the intrepid assurance of a classic.” —Mary McCarthy! The New York Review of Books “Unlike any other gardening book I know! with its Old World charm! its down-to-earth practicality! its whimsy and sophistication.” —Brooke Astor! The New York Times Book Review Informationen zum Autor Eleanor Perényi Klappentext "Unlike any other gardening book I know, with its Old World charm, its down-to-earth practicality, its whimsy and sophistication."-Brooke Astor, The New York Times Book Review A classic in the literature of the garden, Green Thoughts is a beautifully written and highly original collection of seventy-two essays, alphabetically arranged, on topics ranging from "Annuals" and "Artichokes" to "Weeds" and "Wildflowers." An amateur gardener for over thirty years, Eleanor Perényi draws upon her wide-ranging knowledge of gardening lore to create a delightful, witty blend of how-to advice, informed opinion, historical insight, and philosophical musing. There are entries in praise of earthworms and in protest of rock gardens, a treatise on the sexual politics of tending plants, and a paean to the salubrious effect of gardening (see "Longevity" ). Twenty years after its initial publication, Green Thoughts remains as much a joy to read as ever. This Modern Library edition is published with a new Introduction by Allen Lacy, former gardening columnist for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and the author of numerous gardening books. "You do not have to be a good gardener to fall in love with Green Thoughts. It reads with the intrepid assurance of a classic."-Mary McCarthy, The New York Review of Books "One of those dangerous reference works that you reach for at a moment of horticultural crisis or indecision only to find yourself an hour later browsing far beyond the page where you began."-The New YorkerIntroduction, by Allen Lacy I first read Eleanor Perényi’s Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden shortly before its publication in 1981, when I was given an advance copy to review for The Philadelphia Inquirer . Its appearance was a great and wonderful surprise. I had some slight knowledge of Ms. Perényi as a former managing editor of Mademoiselle and the author of a highly acclaimed book on Franz Liszt; nothing in her professional history, however, suggested that a book on gardening should be expected from her. But in her foreword, Perényi set her readers straight: she is a writer, she gardens, and “a writer who gardens is sooner or later going to write a book about the subject-I take that as inevitable.” (Perhaps so. After all, among Germaine Greer’s books there’s a very humorous one called The Revolting Garden , written under the pseudonym Rose Blight.) The sequel to Green Thoughts that many people hoped for has never come. But we can be grateful for what we’ve got. Eleanor Perényi takes her place among a number of other writers who wrote one terrific book on gardening that may be read over and over with unfailing pleasure. Green Thoughts thus takes its place alongside such works as Charles Dudley Warner’s My Summer in a Garden (1870), Celia Thaxter’s An Island Garden (1894), and Karel Capek’s The Gardener’s Year (1929). When I first read it, Green Thoughts astonished me. Here, all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, came this wonderful collection of seventy-two essays of varying lengths, addressing almost every imaginable topic pertaining to gardening. Here were pieces dealing with the d...
