The result is an entertaining and effortlessly compelling examination of nature's stubborn (and successful) struggle to exist in the face of daunting manmade challenges. When science writer Hannah Holmes decided to spend a year studying the inhabitants of her 0.2-acre patch of ground in suburban Portland, Maine, she went about the task with an ecologist's enthusiasm and a scientist's compulsive eye for detail. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. '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 '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' 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 She shares the joy of discovery about the secret lives of ants, spiders and crows.'- USA Today 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. 'Witty environmentalists are as rare as shy politicians. Her science and travel writing has appeared in publications including the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Hannah Holmes is the author of The Secret Life of Dust. 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. 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. To some, it's a green oasis to others, it's eco-purgatory.

The suburban lawn sprouts a crop of contradictory myths.

Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes