Holiday Gift Guide #17 - The Curious Gardener

A good book takes time to read and progresses in a slow and orderly fashion, much like the garden itself. Such is the case with The Curious Gardener by Jürgen Dahl

The Curious Gardener is a collection of Dahl's previous 3 books, much of which were originally created as weekly gardening columns. The 3 books include How to Eat a Lily (1995), The Stinking Garden (1997) and The Curious Gardener (1998). Each book is divided into easy-to-read sections, probably due to their origin as columns.

According to my library record, I have renewed this book twice, each time for 3 weeks and it is rapidly approaching time to renew it again. This means a total of 6-7 weeks to read one book. How could it possibly take so long to work through 250 pages? The fact is, this book was perfect for dipping into whenever I needed a change of pace. Its short section invited a few moments spent in the joys of gardening before returning to more mundane work. It was a gentle friend in the evenings when no more thoughts of computers or email or web pages could be processed.

It seems to happen more frequently than I would like, but I often find myself wanting to meet authors who have already passed from this world. From his writing, Dahl would have been an interesting gardening pen pal. It would have been a joy to read his columns as they were created, rather than in this final collection of his best. Still, I can enjoy the fact that his work was deemed important enough to collect and translate into English.

The Curious Gardener would be a great book for the reading chair and night stand as Fall approaches and quickly turns to Winter. You could lose yourself in the pages as snow flies and your own garden sleeps and wake with new ideas, new thoughts and a new garden come the Springtime.

Link: #17 The Curious Gardener

More gift suggestions in the WelchWrite Store

Don't know what to give? How about an Amazon Gift Certificate!

---

See also:

#16 Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them#15 Plants in the Getty's Central Garden
#14 Fields of Plenty
#13 Sunset Western Garden Book
#12 The Blue Rose by Anthony Eglin
#11 Urban Sanctuaries
#10 Fiskars PowerGear Pro Bypass Large Loppers
#9 Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots
#8 Aspects Hummingbird Hummzinger Feeder
#7 La Crosse Technology WS-7047U Wireless Rain and Temperature Gauge
#6 Garden Gourmet Composter
#5 Garden House
#4 Muck Chore Boots
#3 A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
#2 The $64 Tomato by William Alexander
#1 Pat Welsh's Southern California Gardening