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Awards
OverviewWith canny insight and bone-dry wit, John Alcock, a specialist in the ecology of the American Southwest, introduces us to the lives and loves of desert insects as they forage through his backyard oasis. Creating his own desert garden behind his suburban home in Tempe, Arizona, Alcock scrutinizes every square inch of soil detailing the exotic plant life he finds and offering tips on its peccadilloes and preservation. The true heroes of this story, however, are the bugs of Alcock's backyard. We are drawn into complex plots almost biblical in nature of life and love, survival and death. Two male earwigs caught in each other's pincers battle for a prized female. A female mantis finishes copulating, beheads her mate, and cannibalizes his body for its precious protein. With each detail, Alcock pieces together the entire ecosystem of his desert paradise. Always amusing and instructive, and sometimes dramatic, In a Desert Garden provides an eye-opening meditation on the joys of planting, weeding, pruning, and, most of all, bug-hunting. Full Product DetailsAuthor: John Alcock , Turid ForsythPublisher: WW Norton & Co Imprint: WW Norton & Co Dimensions: Width: 19.80cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 26.40cm Weight: 0.655kg ISBN: 9780393041187ISBN 10: 0393041182 Pages: 192 Publication Date: 25 February 1998 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsReviewsThe real charm of Mr. Alcock . . . is that he shows us that scientific cognition isn't the only way to experience a glorious ecosystem. John Alcock makes desert biology pure fun. The real charm of Mr. Alcock ... is that he shows us that scientific cognition isn't the only way to experience a glorious ecosystem. The real charm of Mr. Alcock . . . is that he shows us that scientific cognition isn't the only way to experience a glorious ecosystem. -- New York Times Book Review John Alcock makes desert biology pure fun. -- High Country News A spirited primer in Sonoran Desert ecology, cloaked in a memoir of gardening. To judge by this graceful little study of insects and desert plants, Alcock (The Masked Bobwhite Rides Again, 1993), a zoologist at Arizona State University, is a suburban neighbor's nightmare. First, he replaced his Bermuda-grass lawn with gravel, cacti, and succulents to replicate the look of the desert before humans remade it. Next, he festooned his yard with cowpies carefully selected for size, weight, and dryness, the creme de la creme of termite chow, as far as Gnathamitermes are concerned, whereafter that voracious insect would find hospitable quarters in his domain. Then he seeded his property with flowers to attract a flotilla of winged and crawling creatures, carpenter bees and globe mallow bees, brittlebush aphids and milkweed aphids, these and many other insects. Thus equipped with a back-door laboratory for ecological studies, Alcock spent the next few years observing what happened; his observations provided him with the field notes from which this book is made. Alcock fills his pages with asides on the insects he has studied for so long at close hand. We learn, among other things, that female praying mantises have gotten a bad rap as spousal murderers; rising to their defense, he observes that the extent of female consumption of males during copulation had been greatly exaggerated. We learn as well that aphids are to be prized, the occasional loss of a rosebush or milkweed plant aside, for their marvelous properties: They reproduce without the curious beings we call males and otherwise develop and mutate in unexpected ways. Ever original, Alcock encourages readers to view the desert with new eyes through this fine contribution to arid-lands literature. (Kirkus Reviews) Author InformationJohn Alcock is professor of zoology at Arizona State University. Turid Forsyth is a writer, artist, and photographer. She lives in Ontario. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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