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My Wild Garden: Notes from a Writer's Eden Audiobook
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On the perimeter of Israel’s Jezreel Valley, with the Carmel mountains rising up in the west, Meir Shalev has a beloved garden, “neither neatly organized nor well kept,” as he cheerfully explains. Often covered in mud and scrapes, Shalev cultivates both nomadic plants and “house dwellers,” using his own quirky techniques. He extolls the virtues of the lemon tree, rescues a precious variety of purple snapdragon from the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv highway, and does battle with a saboteur mole rat. He even gives us his superior private recipe for curing olives.
Informed by Shalev’s literary sensibility, his sometime riotous humor, and his deep curiosity about the land, My Wild Garden abounds with appreciation for the joy of living, quite literally, on Earth. Our borrowed time on any particular patch of it is enhanced, the author reminds us, by our honest, respectful dealings with all manner of beings who inhabit it with us.
Jacket art by Refaella Shir
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"Insightful, funny . . . Full of wisdom . . . You come away from the garden memoir with a clear sense of the author—his concerns, his surroundings, his loves—and a string of reverberating questions. Why, for example, as Shalev notes, are so few flowers mentioned in the Bible? What does that say about us as a people? And why do the poppies sway—even when the air is still? . . . I went to sleep every night with the smell of fresh figs and lemons and the sound of birdsong in my ears and the image of Shalev’s beloved black cat, Kramer, the hero of many of his Hebrew children’s stories, sleeping the day away beneath the buckthorn tree."
— Mitch Ginsburg, The Times of Israel
Quotes
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“Insightful, funny…Full of wisdom.”
— Times of Israel -
“A freewheeling horticultural homage…Shalev’s own garden serves as a point of departure for literary musings that bloom into a kind of ‘autobiography with flowers.’”
— Tel Aviv Review of Books -
“Charming musings on the ‘moments of bliss’ found in the garden…Rests on solid botanical knowledge but is never heavy-handed.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
A freewheeling horticultural homage . . . Shalev’s own garden serves as a point of departure for literary musings that bloom into a kind of ‘autobiography with flowers.’ . . . Witty prose expertly translated from the Hebrew by Joanna Chen and charmingly illustrated by Refaella Shir.
— Benjamin Balint, Tel Aviv Review of Books -
A nurturer of plants who is careful not to waste even a single seed and mourns the death of a tree, Shalev is a lyrical stylist and philosopher who writes with passion and humor. Drawings by Shir enhance the text.
— Sue O’Brien, Library Journal -
Charming musings on the ‘moments of bliss’ found in the garden . . . in which gardening teaches perspective and the rewards of hard work . . . Rests on solid botanical knowledge but is never heavy-handed.
— Kirkus Reviews
Awards
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A Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year
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About Meir Shalev
Meir Shalev (1948-2023) was one of Israel’s most celebrated novelists whose books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and have been best sellers in Israel, Holland, and Germany. He also wrote non-fiction, children’s books, and a weekly column in the weekend edition of Yediot Ahronot. His honors include the National Jewish Book Award and the Brenner Prize, one of Israel's top literary awards, for A Pigeon and a Boy. He has been named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
About Arthur Morey
Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine “Best Of” Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for two Audie Awards. He has acted in a number of productions, both off Broadway in New York and off Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.