Suburban Safari - by Hannah Holmes (Paperback)

About the Book

More than 550 square miles of new lawns unfold each year in the U.S. alone. Equipped with a lawn chair and her infectious curiosity, a science writer spends a year on her lawn hoping to discover exactly what's going on out there.

Book Synopsis

The suburban lawn sprouts a crop of contradictory myths. To some, it's a green oasis; to others, it's eco-purgatory. Science writer Hannah Holmes spent a year appraising the lawn through the eyes of the squirrels, crows, worms, and spiders who think of her backyard as their own. Suburban Safari is a fascinating and often hilarious record of her discoveries: that many animals adore the suburban environment, including bears and cougars venturing in from the woods; how plants, in their struggle for dominance, communicate with their own kind and battle other species; and that ways already exist for us to grow healthier, livelier lawns.
Hannah Holmes is the author of The Secret Life of Dust. Her science and travel writing has appeared in publications including the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. She lives in South Portland, Maine. "Witty environmentalists are as rare as shy politicians. But in Suburban Safari, Hannah Holmes laughs at herself while celebrating the wild kingdom she explores...Holmes is a science writer who doesn't lecture. She shares the joy of discovery about the secret lives of ants, spiders and crows."-USA Today
"Holmes' backyard assumes strange, oversize proportions in the course of this fascinating book: the Bamboo Wilderness, the Insect Nation, the Freedom Lawn-who needs Mongolia?"-Los Angeles Times
"The writing is punchy and chock-full of strange and wonderful facts...Holmes makes it seem utterly commonplace to invite a chipmunk into one's home or spend the afternoon observing slugs."-Oregonian
"Holmes sends even the most jaded urbanite out into the yard with a magnifying glass and a newly forged sense of awe...One of the most unusual, entertaining, effortlessly educational homages to nature since Euell Gibbons ate a pine tree."-Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Review Quotes

"Holmes sends even the most jaded urbanite out into the yard with a magnifying glass and a newly forged sense of awe One of the most unusual, entertaining, effortlessly educational homages to nature since Euell Gibbons ate a pine tree."
--Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers"

"Holmes' backyard assumes strange, oversize proportions in the course of this fascinating book: the Bamboo Wilderness, the Insect Nation, the Freedom Lawn--who needs Mongolia?"


"The writing is punchy and chock-full of strange and wonderful facts...Holmes makes it seem utterly commonplace to invite a chipmunk into one's home or spend the afternoon observing slugs."


"Witty environmentalists are as rare as shy politicians. But in "Suburban Safari," Hannah Holmes laughs at herself while celebrating the wild kingdom she explores...Holmes is a science writer who doesn't lecture. She shares the joy of discovery about the secret lives of ants, spiders and crows."


"Witty, imaginative, and powerful...Holmes is a Rachel Carson for 21st-century suburbia. A"


"Witty, imaginative, and powerful.Holmes is a Rachel Carson for 21st-century suburbia. A"

About the Author

Hannah Holmes is the author of The Secret Life of Dust. Her science and travel writing has appeared in publications including the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. She lives in South Portland, Maine.