Second Nature Author:Michael Pollan An account of one man's experience in his garden; invites an exploration of unexamined feelings about nature and the place of society in the landscape, and what gardening has to teach about the troubled borders between nature and culture. — This isn't so much a how-to on gardening as a how-to on thinking about gardening. It follo... more »ws the course of the natural year, from spring through winter, as Pollan, an editor at Harper'sMagazine , chronicles his growth as a gardener in Connecticut's rocky Housatonic Valley. Starting out as a "child of Thoreau", he attempted to follow Thoreau's example: do not impose your will upon the wilderness, the woodchucks, or the weeds. Pollan soon realized that society's concept of culture as the enemy of nature would get him a bumper crop of weeds and well-fed woodchucks but no vegetables to eat. But neither did pesticides or firebombing the woodchuck burrow.
So Michael Pollan began to think about the troubled borders between nature and contemporary life; thoughts on the war of the roses; sex and class conflict in the garden; virtuous composting; the American lawn; seed catalogs, and the politics of planting a tree-- resulting in a blend of meditation, autobiography, and social history.« less