Have you ever come upon a book with a story that you find completely irresistible? That you can read over and over again? That you recommend to everyone?

My perennial book recommendation is French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France by Richard Goodman. It is a delightful memoir of Goodman’s year in France, the French farmers he befriends, and the small plot of land that he tends on the edge of town.

It’s the kind of book that compels you to settle down into a chair with a cup of tea and not get up until it is over. One of my favorite passages in the book is, “I don’t think it is so easy to make a garden too small, but it is very easy to make a garden too big. This I did, and magnificently.” How true and perfectly put!

A few weeks ago, my friend Mari who writes for Amazon’s blog Omnivoracious asked me to send her a list of my favorite garden books. French Dirt was definitely on the list. A few days after Mari posted my recommendations, I opened my email and found a note from Richard Goodman, thanking me for my little nod to his book.

I was thrilled and delighted that he took the time to email me and asked if he might share a few lines about some of his favorite gardening and cooking books. And he agreed.

I hope you have fun getting to know Richard (he is also the author of The Soul of Creative Writing) and that over the next weeks you’ll take the time to sit down and read French Dirt. Think of it as a little holiday gift to yourself.

Richard Goodman’s Book Recommendations:

People tend not to believe me because of my book, French Dirt, but I’m not a very good gardener.  In fact, I know very little about gardening.  French Dirt isn’t misleading, though.  Its subtitle says, The Story of a Garden in the South of France.  It doesn’t say, How to Garden in the South of France. Now, that would be misleading.  No, I’m just a passionate amateur.  I turn to people who do know what they’re talking about when I want to learn something.  The same goes for cooking.  I’m a passionate amateur in the kitchen.  For me, though, it’s all about the writing, too.  I find it very hard to read a garden book or a cookbook that’s dull.  And too many of them are.

That’s why I find myself turning again and again to the late, great garden writer Henry Mitchell.  For years, he wrote a column on gardening for the Washington Post. I discovered him through his book, The Essential Earthman.  I remember opening the book for the first time in a bookstore on the Upper East Side where I worked for below-minimum wage.  I was instantly a fan.  His writing is strong, direct, knowing, sharp, and wise.  Just listen to the first lines of the book, “As I write this, on June 29, it’s about time for another summer storm to smash the garden to pieces….”  The chapter is titled, “On the Defiance of Gardeners.”  Everywhere you turn in Mitchell, there are wonderful things: “Wherever human gardens magnificently, there are magnificent heartbreaks,” he writes.  He concludes that first chapter, “Defiance, on the other hand, is what makes gardeners.”  And, later in the book, “A garden is not a picture, but a language.”   And this simple dictum, which might save many a gardener from a lot of stress, “No plant is perfect.”  The Essential Earthman is one of the best books I’ve ever read, period.  It was followed by another Mitchell gem, One Man’s Garden.  I read Mitchell as much for his prose as I do for his advice.  I’ve used his books in my writing courses many times.  Why not?  Good writing is good writing, wherever you find it, and that’s just the point.

As for cookbooks, one of my favorites is James Beard’s American Cookery. It bestows absolute confidence, and I love to read it again and again for the prose.  Beard is a very fine writer.  He loves and knows his food and the people who produced the dishes he writes about.  His book is as much a chronicle of American history through its cooking as it is a guide.  Although James Beard is a well-known expert, I don’t think he ever received the major recognition he deserved, and I think now that’s even more the case, with all the super chefs coming at us from all parts of the world.  But Beard was special.  It’s all there in his books to see.