An instructive, inspirational, and indispensable guide for anyone who tires of lawn care and wants an alternative that could...
Bogh and Schnetz outline the steps to transform a water-hungry lawn into an inviting, drought-resistant, less-hassle garden.
In light of California’s recent law mandating water conservation as well as the increasing danger that more U.S. and global regions may experience crippling droughts, Bogh and Schnetz’s ecologically responsible book is timely and wise. Though the book advocates a no-lawn approach and highlights plants and soils of the arid West, the authors explain that much of the information regarding water-efficient garden design and planting can be applied to all climate zones. The book takes the novice gardener on a soup-to-nuts journey from methods on how to kill a water-hogging lawn to design choices for creating a lovely outdoor room decorated with stones, tile, and drought-resistant trees and plants. The authors cite some shocking statistics: for U.S. homeowners living in arid regions, 60 to 75 percent of their household water is used for watering lawns, and 25 million acres of lawn is tended to by U.S. residents at an annual cost of $6.4 billion. Their well-organized guide begins with some basic FAQs about designing, developing, and maintaining a no-grass yard. From there, the book offers a comprehensive description, in helpful detail and with color photos, of steps necessary to complete the project. Other topics include envisioning a “paradise garden,” finding landscaping professionals, hiring contractors, acquiring necessary permits, soil and composting, irrigation techniques, choosing trees and plants, and pruning strategies. Wonderful resources, including a large list of gardening websites, close out the index. The book’s visual layout is also appealing, with plenty of color photos providing fine support as well as inspiration for design ideas. Brief, practical tips dot the text, as do lyrical observations about nature and gardens from writers such as Stanley Kunitz and Wendell Berry. The authors strike a perfect tone between deliberate planning and following your heart, experimenting with textures and colors and developing a green thumb through some trial and error.
An instructive, inspirational, and indispensable guide for anyone who tires of lawn care and wants an alternative that could help mother earth.Pub Date: July 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4929-5510-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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