Saving Graces: Sojourns of a Backyard Biologist

by Roger B. Swain

Book Overview

Celebrated gardening authority Swain's collection of meditations on the pleasures of preservation and the redeeming qualities of objects and moments saved and savored. Swain is host of PBS's popular... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316824712
• ISBN13: 9780316824712
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 138 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A writer with full pockets

My appreciation for Swain's gentle wisdom has deepened with reading of another collection of essays (see my review of FIELD DAYS, Lyons & Burford, 1983). He is a writer with full pockets -- both figurative and literal, (including chestnuts -- also figurative and literal) who remembers the exuberant field trips of childhood as he explores the wider ranges of grown-up-dom. Why is wet weather called "bad?" Can bogs be sustainably harvested? Why is our sense of smell so vivid and so fleeting? How does one make a wooden comb? These are the sorts of simple questions Swain asks and thoughtfully turns over in his hands, looking for warts and wrinkles and wiggly things that flit off before they can be properly addressed. (In conjunction with his comb making project he observes, "Like many, I dream of making a living with my hands rather than my mind." I had to laugh -- aloud. As a constructor of things at the time I read this book, in 1993, I dreamt of making a living with my mind, rather than my hands. And so it goes.) This collection is a treasure set with gems.

Victory Gardens and Musings

Ah Roger Swain. The red suspendered bespeckled guy from the Victory Garden who got so excited over veggies and water gardens. Here's a guy you gotta love. He's so passionate about the environment and the creatures we share the earth with. The "Dime-Store Turtle" story was particularly engaging to this turtle lover. Find a cozy spot on the porch, your deck, by a stream...sit back and relax with Roger Swain and his thoughtful essays.