Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn

by Hannah Holmes

Overview

The suburban lawn sprouts a crop of contradictory myths. To some, it's a green oasis; to others, it's eco-purgatory. Science writer Hannah Holmes spent a year appraising the lawn through the eyes of the squirrels, crows, worms, and spiders who think of her backyard as their own. Suburban Safari is a fascinating and often hilarious record of her discoveries: that many animals adore the suburban environment, including bears and cougars venturing in from the woods; how plants, in their struggle for dominance, communicate with their own kind and battle other species; and that ways already exist for us to grow healthier, livelier lawns.

Hannah Holmes is the author of The Secret Life of Dust. Her science and travel writing has appeared in publications including the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. She lives in South Portland, Maine. "Witty environmentalists are as rare as shy politicians. But in Suburban Safari, Hannah Holmes laughs at herself while celebrating the wild kingdom she explores...Holmes is a science writer who doesn't lecture. She shares the joy of discovery about the secret lives of ants, spiders and crows."-USA Today

"Holmes' backyard assumes strange, oversize proportions in the course of this fascinating book: the Bamboo Wilderness, the Insect Nation, the Freedom Lawn-who needs Mongolia?"-Los Angeles Times

"The writing is punchy and chock-full of strange and wonderful facts...Holmes makes it seem utterly commonplace to invite a chipmunk into one's home or spend the afternoon observing slugs."-Oregonian

"Holmes sends even the most jaded urbanite out into the yard with a magnifying glass and a newly forged sense of awe...One of the most unusual, entertaining, effortlessly educational homages to nature since Euell Gibbons ate a pine tree."-Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596910911
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	03/01/2006
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.57(d)

About the Author

Hannah Holmes is the author of The Secret Life of Dust. Her science and travel writing has appeared in publications including the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. She lives in South Portland, Maine.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Spring

1: A Flood of Feathers

2: Bugs in My Belfry

3: Lawn of Many Waters

Summer

4: I Love You, Now Spit Out My Azalea

5: The Army of Earth Movers

6: The Freedom Lawn

Fall

7: Before

8: The Stately and Scheming Trees

9: Sifting Secrets from the Air

Winter

10: The Thirteen Coldest Days of the Year

11: Melting Pot Blues

12: Strange Family

References

Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

"Holmes sends even the most jaded urbanite out into the yard with a magnifying glass and a newly forged sense of awe…One of the most unusual, entertaining, effortlessly educational homages to nature since Euell Gibbons ate a pine tree."

Mary Roach

"The writing is punchy and chock-full of strange and wonderful facts…Holmes makes it seem utterly commonplace to invite a chipmunk into one's home or spend the afternoon observing slugs."

Oregonian

"Holmes' backyard assumes strange, oversize proportions in the course of this fascinating book: the Bamboo Wilderness, the Insect Nation, the Freedom Lawn—who needs Mongolia?"

Los Angeles Times

"Witty environmentalists are as rare as shy politicians. But in Suburban Safari, Hannah Holmes laughs at herself while celebrating the wild kingdom she explores…Holmes is a science writer who doesn't lecture. She shares the joy of discovery about the secret lives of ants, spiders and crows."

USA Today

"Witty, imaginative, and powerful…Holmes is a Rachel Carson for 21st-century suburbia. A"

Entertainment Weekly

With infectious enthusiasm and faith in nature's doggedness in the face of encroaching humanity, science writer Holmes (The Secret Life of Dust, 2001) follows the four seasons as they play out in her own micro-habitat. Raised on a farm, the author left country life far behind when she moved to New York City for several years. Now she's compromised between the two extremes, setting up house on two-tenths of an acre in suburban Portland, Maine. She's determined to immerse herself in the workings of her patch of ground, and though it isn't a lot of land, it turns out to be more than enough to nurture many varieties of insect, bird, and mammal species. All are fodder for Holmes's meditations on natural history, zoology, and the current American landscape. The writer encourages nature in her own backyard through benign neglect; she doesn't use chemical fertilizers on the grass and grows only what can survive biweekly lawn mowing. (When her lawn mower breaks in late summer, she's fascinated by the resultant growth.) Other than that, she's a typical resident, blessed with an omnivorous curiosity and a good pair of binoculars. She gets to know intimately the crows in her yard, examines all the insects she can find under the microscope, and tames a chipmunk she dubs "Cheeky." Even the barren branches of winter are greeted with delight: Finally, she can see what's been going on behind all those leaves. Holmes doesn't confine her interest to sentient creatures. A meditation on wolves rapidly turns into a discussion of the last ice age and how it must have manifested in her little corner of the world. The lawn itself, as a feature of the modern landscape, also comes in for a sociological andhistorical examination. A cracking good reminder that an appreciation of the wonders of nature need not be reserved for special occasions. Agent: Michelle Tessler/Tessler Literary Agency

Kirkus Reviews

"An eye-opening plunge into a fascinating, nearly invisible world."

discover.com

"Holmes reveals the intriguing, unnoticed dramas that unfold daily on suburban lawns. A fascinating journey."

Denver Post

"Armed with the vast knowledge gleaned from science writer Hannah Holmes' Suburban Safari, you can go on the offensive with yard man. Informative."

Cleveland Plain Dealer

"The controversy over how to deal with this growing health threat will keep this book passing from hand to hand."

Booklist

"Captivating. Who needs another TV show when there's all this drama in the back yard?"

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Suburban Safari proves once and for all that there is life in the suburbs and that it's worth thinking hard about how to handle it."

Robert Sullivan