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Title details for Cutting Back by Leslie Buck - Available

Cutting Back

My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto

by Leslie Buck
Caroline McLaughlin
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
At thirty-five, Leslie Buck made an impulsive decision to put her personal life on hold to pursue her passion. Leaving behind a full life of friends, love, and professional security, she became the first American woman to learn pruning from one of the most storied landscaping companies in Kyoto. Cutting Back recounts Buck's bold journey and the revelations she has along the way. During her apprenticeship in Japan, she learns that the best Kyoto gardens look so natural they appear untouched by human hands, even though her crew spends hours meticulously cleaning every pebble in the streams. She is taught how to bring nature's essence into a garden scene, how to design with native plants, and how to subtly direct a visitor through a landscape. But she learns the most important lessons from her fellow gardeners: how to balance strength with grace, seriousness with humor, and technique with heart.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 6, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781541425200
      • File size: 221524 KB
      • Duration: 07:41:30

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      When Leslie Buck was 35 and running a successful landscaping business in California, she took off for Kyoto for a three-month tree-pruning apprenticeship. It's a classic fish-out-of-water experience--she barely speaks any Japanese, is the only woman on the crew, and must learn to control her emotions. Narrator Caroline McLaughlin captures Buck's experience with energy and an appealing voice. She ably expresses Buck's loneliness, homesickness, exhaustion, and cultural confusion as well as her deep appreciation for the Japanese gardening world. Impressively, she rolls through Japanese names and concepts without hesitation. At first, McLaughlin's rapid pace seems too quick for the gentle and meticulous nature of Japanese pruning and garden design, but she soon relaxes into her narration. And perhaps that mirrors Buck's appreciation for the Japanese way. A.B. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from March 6, 2017
      Buck is a California garden designer and aesthetic pruner who went to Japan for a three-month apprenticeship in Kyoto, working in some of Japan’s renowned gardens. Her memoir is a mix of gardening insight, cross-cultural observations, and personal development. Buck has as good an eye for cultural dissonance as she does for pines that need pruning. She is also unsparing in her self-observations, wrestling with her American ego in the context of another country’s work culture. The through line of her narrative is the slow development of her professional relationship with her crew boss, Nakaji, whose leadership style is primarily management by yelling. The changing nuances of her understanding of him are particularly engrossing and give the book a kind of literary skeleton. This is an absorbing read about the formative interplay of humans, cultures, and gardens.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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