My Wild Garden
Notes from a Writer's Eden
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
A colorfully illustrated round of the season in the garden of the best-selling novelist, memoirist, and champion putterer with a wheelbarrow
On the perimeter of Israel’s Jezreel Valley, with the Carmel mountains rising up in the west, Meir Shalev has a beloved garden, “neither neatly organized nor well kept,” as he cheerfully explains. Often covered in mud and scrapes, Shalev cultivates both nomadic plants and “house dwellers,” using his own quirky techniques. He extolls the virtues of the lemon tree, rescues a precious variety of purple snapdragon from the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv highway, and does battle with a saboteur mole rat. He even gives us his superior private recipe for curing olives.
Informed by Shalev’s literary sensibility, his sometime riotous humor, and his deep curiosity about the land, My Wild Garden abounds with appreciation for the joy of living, quite literally, on Earth. Our borrowed time on any particular patch of it is enhanced, the author reminds us, by our honest, respectful dealings with all manner of beings who inhabit it with us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shalev (My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner), an Israeli novelist and amateur gardener, endears in this delightful memoir cum gardening guide. Inspired by his Hasidic grandfather's Ukrainian garden with fruit trees inspired by the Torah, the author developed his own garden, gathering hyacinth squill bulbs, anemone, Syrian cornflower-thistle and lupine seeds from neighbors' gardens, and sage and marjoram from a nearby nursery. He generously references the Bible ("The first fruit trees to be given names were the tree of life and the tree of knowledge that grew in the Garden of Eden") and elaborates on the virtues of the pomegranate, blood orange, and lemon tree (it "does not make any special effort to endear itself to its owners"). Shalev's own garden, he proudly writes, has attracted everything from brides and kindergartners to mole rats, bats, and aggressive ants. Punctuated with charming botanical drawings, Shalev's musings flow effortlessly from start to finish. His lyrical prose, generous pacing, and passion will please any reader with a green thumb.
