I'm not sure if you saw Jamaica Kincaid's garden book review a few weeks back in the June 1 Sunday NY Times. You can re-find it at
http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-page?res=9D07E7DD1731F932A35755C0A9659C8B63
This is easily the oddest garden book review I've read -- just what you expect to happen when you unleash a nutty novelist/poet on the prim world of garden writing. She manages to both praise and mock at the same time, and writes as much about herself as the books she is purportedly reviewing. For example:
"It is practically a commandment that a gardener who lives on top of the North Pole will long to grow bananas and that a gardener who lives in a place where bananas are endemic will long to have an Alpine scree. All of which is to say that the general idea of this book is correct but only in your dreams. "
I have no idea if any of the books she reviewed are worth owning, but it was fun trying to figure it out!
Posted by rich at June 19, 2003 11:55 AM