Beautiful Madness: One Man's Journey Through Other People's Gardens - Hardcover

Dodson, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525949356 ISBN 13: 9780525949350

Publisher: Dutton, 2006

Synopsis

Behind-the-scenes accounts of the Philadelphia Flower Show and the Chelsea Garden Show reveal what the author learned about some of the western world's most influential gardens and describe his encounters with such plants as a smuggled exotic day lily and stolen cuttings from a Founding Father's shrubbery. By the author of Final Rounds. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

JAMES DODSON is the author of Final Rounds, the 1996 bestseller that was named the Golf Book of the Year by the International Network of Golf. He is also the author of The Road to Somewhere, The Dewsweepers, Faithful Travelers, and A Golfer's Life, a collaboration with Arnold Palmer that was a New York Times bestseller. He is a four-time winner of the prestigious Golf Writers of America Award for his column in Golf Magazine, and a recipient of the 1998 Golf Reporter of the Year Award by the International Network of Golf.

Reviews

Flower fanatics and perfectionist planters will find much to enjoy in Dodson's recounting of his year spent traveling to various gardens around the world. The author, an amateur gardener whose other books are mostly about golf, travels through the eastern U.S., England and Africa, looking at and learning about flowers and plants. Dodson begins and ends his journey at the Philadelphia Flower Show, where he introduces readers to, among others, Linda and Walt Fisher, a retired couple who force bulbs to grow according to a set schedule so they bloom at precisely the right time for the show. Dodson also takes readers to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's estate, and to his home state of North Carolina, where, in a touching scene, he reconnects with an elderly friend of his late mother. But while Dodson's travels are interesting enough, there isn't a through-line uniting his adventures other than him collecting plants he hopes will grow in his garden in Maine. There are lots of people in the book-so many that it's hard to keep track of them all-but no main characters emerge in Dodson's narrative. While horticulture enthusiasts may delight in Dodson's descriptions of his travails, casual readers may find themselves bored by the descriptions of the plants, places and people he encounters.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525949356
• ISBN 13: 9780525949350
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304