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Katso täsmennyssivulta muut tekijät, joiden nimi on Sharon White.

2 teosta 15 jäsentä 2 arvostelua

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Sharon White teaches writing at Temple University in Philadelphia.

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female

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It's a shame I didn't read this when we were still living in Philadelphia, which we were when I bought it. The writer was a near neighbor and we must have passed each other countless times as we haunted similar places and thought about and researched similar subjects, although not quite the same or for the same reasons. But I have wandered about the same territory from the Wissahickon to Lemon Hill imagining how these places might have looked at different eras. A good portion of her book, not unlike the one I recently read set here in my present neighborhood near Lewis Creek, Vermont, is about avid gardeners and naturalists, John and William Bartram of the famed Bartram Gardens, George Logan and various others, all Philadelphians. Any Philadelphia resident or past resident with an interest in the history of the city and a love of gardens and natural history should enjoy this. It is interspersed with reflections on her own experience of Philadelphia as a place to live (White grew up in Woodstock Vermont, another coincidence that we share these two places, but so differently) and garden. It is meticulously observed although at times I felt she got a bit tangled up in her effort to describe things, that was a rarity. Mostly her prose is a lovely mix of exactitude and grace. ****… (lisätietoja)
 
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sibylline | 1 muu arvostelu | Dec 14, 2014 |
This book was a great find, especially great for winter reading during the recent snow storm. The book combines a discussion of plants that grow in the city with city history. But the book is not nearly as dry as that makes it sound. The book is filled with descriptions of pastoral scenes, descriptions of varieties of plants, of famous gardens of the past, of eccentric gardeners. White's style is especially effective in conveying a sense of connection among people who have gardened and loved gardening in Philadelphia over the last few centuries. She achieves this way of making history come alive by anchoring in her own life experiences. The book reads like a sort of formalized journal that wanders off into the lives of other people. Woven expertly into these contemporary explorations are the stories and exploits of people of the past.

When White writes, toward the beginning of the book, "The more I live in my corner of Philadelphia, the more it seems that the city is an extensive garden, a bit wild in parts" (p.4). For someone living in Center City, that is a great eye-opener; beauty and nature are all around us, even in what seems to be the most urban settings. All we have to do is open our eyes and see it, whether it is plants growing in a hidden spot, or a sense of the past and what has come before.
… (lisätietoja)
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briantomlin | 1 muu arvostelu | Feb 8, 2010 |

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Tilastot

Teokset
2
Jäseniä
15
Suosituimmuussija
#708,120
Arvio (tähdet)
4.0
Kirja-arvosteluja
2
ISBN:t
10