At last Saturday's popup at the Wylde Center's Spring Garden Plant sale, a bright, book-loving 4th grader asked me, "Have you read all these books?"
It is a fair question and one that I am occasionally asked. My answer is "Some of them, but not all of them."
Reference books on butterflies, bees, birds and gardening techniques, don't require page by page reading, but essay or long form type books on various related topics such as women in nature, climate policy and the current one I am reading Henry Grabar's Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World do require some vetting. In short, the Grabar book reminds me of Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do.
I am only about a third of the way through the book and I am pleasantly surprised. On the surface, the author has taken on a dull topic but he has made it relative, informative and deserving of some thought. And it has its lighter moments too including Jerry Seinfeld's joke about parking in Manhattan, "It's like musical chairs except everyone sat down in 1964."
On Saturday morning, April 20th we will be at Carter Center's Freedom Farmer's Market with our books and ready to field any questions. But in the words of a smart ass tour guide I once had in Europe, "Please don't ask me anything I cannot answer." Of course the guide was serious, but I am not.
NOTE: Last week we mentioned we were going to be at the Avondale Estates Earth Day festivities on Sunday, April 21st, but the planners have canceled the event.
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