My book club decided to read Harvest for Hope by Jane Goodall recently and I was somewhat afraid it wouldn’t have too much new information for me that I didn’t already read about in Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, or Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  But I was surprised that there is still a lot about our current food environment that I don’t know.  The book is actually only partially written by Jane Goodall, if you aren’t familiar with her, she is the woman famous for living with and studying chimpanzees in Africa.  The book has two other contributing writers and  at times it does read like it has multiple authors.  The tone of the work is inconsistent and it doesn’t always flow together in a natural way, there are also things repeated in the book multiple times as if it is the first time they are mentioned.

The book has brief overviews on a lot of different interesting topics.  I was actually glad I’d already read some of the other books on this subject because I felt at times like Harvest for Hope assumed you had a good understanding of things and brushed over the details on several of the topics. On the other hand, this book did introduce me to several topics I had not thought much about previously, one of which being the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our food today.  While the book gave a pretty good overview of GMOs, it definitely left me wanting to find out more for myself.

Overall, I would start with other books if you haven’t read much on this subject, but if you have already read Omnviore’s Dilemma and others like it and want a brief overview on GMO’s, water quality, the impact of fishing on the environment or some of the other subjects she discusses, it might be worth picking up.  The book also has a pretty extensive list of resources in the back that I found helpful to find out more information.

P. S. Sorry for the lack of posts this week, I was out of town all weekend and got back Sunday night.  And now our baby has a cold and an ear infection!

Second Nature by Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore’s Dilemma, is one of his earlier works on gardening. This is the third book that he wrote and it’s also ironically the third book I’ve read by him, the first two being Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food which I highly recommend you read if you haven’t already.

This book is a gardeners manifesto. At it’s heart it’s a series of independent essays connected by the themes of gardening and nature all stuffed into a single book. I later learned that some of these essays were originally published as standalone works in Harpers and The New York Times, and unfortunately it reads like they are independent of each other.

It hints of the brilliance of his later works, it’s well written with, at times, beautiful prose. It falls short both in a consistent narrative and interest of topic. The musing of a gardener waxing philosophical on gardening doesn’t hold the allure of exploring man’s relationship to food. Perhaps I garden for utilitarian purposes: interest, learning and food.

The most interesting essay was about roses entitled “Into the Rose Garden”. This chapter explored old world roses vs. modern hybrid roses. It was interesting, well researched and well written. However, even this chapter went a bit long and became haughty at times. Take this quote from pg. 84 as an example:

“Proponents of the old Rose have more than disease resistance and a nice smell on their side, however. Their champions may not acknowledge it directly, but a large part of the appeal of old roses - which seems to be enjoying a renaissance today - is based on snobbery. The war of the roses is at bottom a class war.”

Really rose gardening is basically a class war? It was disappointing perhaps because I have really loved the last two books, but I would pass on this one unless you really want to read about gardening. If you decide to read it I would wait until winter when you’re spending time reflecting on your garden and preparing for the next one rather than getting your hands dirty working, you’ll be in more of a musing mood.