littlepiscesreading's reviews
101 reviews

The prose is lovely and pulled me in right away. I'm fond of pining and Mateo's for Anders just hits that sweet spot though Ianira is a fascinating character that I'm sad not to see more of. There's a wonderful juxtaposition between the ecological destruction wrought, the suffocatingly cramped bathyscaphe, the tension between the characters and hope and wonder. 

 The difficulty that at times arises with digital reading is how well this reflects the intended experience. Hornberg’s opening is a lovely hand-written invitation into the world of gardening made tricky by the size of various screens. Unfortunately this doesn’t improve as the book progresses. Its pages often instead growing more crowded with illustrations and explanations.

I thought the illustrations were charming and playful. The birds in their air balloon exporting seeds, for one. I enjoyed the circus page where the animals were named after plants and found that to be engaging. The plants themselves are drawn very well and I wasn’t left wanting or unsure of what was being discussed.

From presenting information about pine cones in the guise of a pirate guide, Picture A Garden does convey its wealth of knowledge in fun ways. But it does sometimes stray out of its realm of knowledge to do so. The pot shot at historical hygiene practices is pure stereotype and the dress historian in me finds that frustrating. 

Thanks to iRead Book Tours and Linda Hornberg for the review copy. I leave this review voluntarily.

From theatre to agriculture, landmarks to the military, the breadth of subjects that the book touches on makes it an incredibly interesting read. My favourite of which is the section dedicated to dialect. I love hearing about the ways that people express themselves. And while the myriad subjects can appear disparate, the chapters are put together both well and interestingly. The scope also helps to create a fuller sense of Delaware society in each of time periods covered.

I’m glad to see that so many organisations were thanked for supporting the book. Nonetheless I do wish that it were more explicit in how they gave that support and what that support entailed. Though many of its images are well credited, its facts are not. There are no sources beyond quotes from newspapers and even these are unevenly applied. The World War I munitions section, for instance, has three quotes and these are credited as ‘the News Journal reported on August 13’, ‘said the Morning News’ and ‘noted February 19, 1919’.

Unfortunately this scattershot sourcing also feeds into the worst of all – its AI images. Immediately I went to ask people if they understood what ‘generated by Dall-E’ meant. Those not inordinately online didn’t know that this was AI. Unsurprising given the current state of Facebook and its users reputation for being unable to distinguish the real from the not no matter how surreal the image. The unreality of the images needs to be explicit in a work of nonfiction if it has to be included.

Tabler’s books on the history of Delaware are nicely presented. The pages filled with intriguing illustrations, historical documents and artefacts have long been one of my favourite elements. Both for its ability to realise the past and for its presentation. Style can itself be substance. And there’s joy in that. Though noticeably less so given the far fewer images in this book. It forces you to see the people and the places as real and not just some alien concept. And in doing so it brings you closer to both. AI is the antithesis of this. Moreover the use of it in nonfiction legitimises it to a lay public. Especially given that these are mixed amongst the book’s other images which are from many reputable and legitimate sources – including several of the forty eight organisations credited with supporting the book.

There are some improvements upon the last book. With most of the information siloed to the back of the book, I appreciate that there are working links on both mobile and desktop so I didn’t have to manually flip through with this book.

With thanks to iRead Book Tours and Dave Tabler. I leave this review voluntarily.