by Ruth Kassinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2010
The author colorfully describes her new herbaceous friends and writes about family and mortality with a colloquial zest.
A cancer survivor’s foray into horticulture and healing.
After losing a sister to cancer and surviving a bout of her own, science and health writer Kassinger (Glass: From Cinderella’s Slipper to Fiber Optics, 2003, etc.) embarked on a personal journey to construct a small conservatory in her home, investigating the history of mankind’s understanding and acquisition of plants. The early addition of an orange tree to her collection leads to an exploration of the plant’s Chinese origins and early spread across Asia, the Middle East and Europe. The subtropical plant, writes the author, took root in Europe despite the area’s inhospitable winters, thanks to the development of “orangeries” among 16th-century nobility. From the utilitarian orangeries—basically sooty, windowless rooms heated by roaring fires and seen only by gardeners—came windowed greenhouses, glass lean-tos and splendorous glass-houses that allowed in vast quantities of sunlight and, ultimately, the public. Kassinger’s own conservatory developed in fits and starts as she learned the ropes from the local garden-supply store. Eventually, she expanded her horizons by visiting historic and eclectic green- and glass-houses around the Eastern United States. As she relates the exotic adventures and practical challenges faced by Enlightenment-era “plant hunters” in far-flung lands across the seas, we see the technological advancements that allowed for a deeper understanding and cultivation of plants and the commercialization of gardening. As Kassinger’s conservatory develops, she works through her own tale of loss and survival, examining the mercurial nature of life and nature and the solace to be found in that symmetry.
The author colorfully describes her new herbaceous friends and writes about family and mortality with a colloquial zest.Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-154774-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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