“The rituals of gardening give a rhythm, even rapture, to everyday life that is apart from the routines of writing and the flows of relationships. Tending my garden became the same as taking care of myself.” When Laurie Lisle fled the city, she was in such a fever to buy a particular old clapboard house on the green of a historic New England village that she didn’t notice the awkward shape of the backyard. “When I had seen the surveyor’s map of my less than half acre,” she writes, “I was shocked at how very long and narrow a rectangle it actually was; on paper, as if seen from above, it looked to me like a fairway on a golf course, and I wondered how I could turn such an awful shape into a graceful garden.” Thus begins this modern pastoral, in which Lisle tells us how she heaved compost, dug post holes, planted, and replanted–and how she also found herself digging into her feelings about love and loss, work and play, roots and rootlessness, solitude and sociability. Twenty years later, in these intimate essays that have sprung up around themes such as “Weather,” “Color,” “Woods,” and “Shadows,” Lisle explores the fascinating connections among one’s interior landscape, village life, and the natural world. In “Roots,” Lisle writes about the generations of female gardeners in her family and the question of whether she has exiled herself into “a floral cage.” In “Sharon,” she traces the grand gardening history of her pre-Revolution town and notes the tensions between natives and newcomers. “Words” contrasts “the easy pleasure of gardening” with “the more elusive satisfaction of writing,” and goes on to examine the role of the garden in the lives of writers such as Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton. “Woods” tells of the “dramatic demarcation point between nature acted upon and nature left alone.” In “Outside,” Lisle battles back the deer and contemplates the mature garden that has grown up around her. Ultimately, Four Tenths of an Acre is a testament to one woman’s glorious engagement with place. Time does not stand still in a garden. Just as winter's tranquility masks the feverish underground activity of bulbs gathering fuel for spring blossoms, so, too, does a life undergo complex metamorphoses as transitions are either chosen or forced upon it. Lisle found herself at just such a turning point following her divorce and, leaving behind the hectic, sophisticated pace she enjoyed as an acclaimed journalist in Manhattan, she set out to find a simpler, more rewarding way of living. A historic village in rural Connecticut held just the right house and garden in which Lisle could rediscover her true essence. In this beguiling and wise memoir, Lisle recounts the lessons learned as she worked a tiny plot of land, weeding not only errant plants but also those wayward thoughts and behaviors that she once thought impossible to let go. Lisle's cogent meditations on the rewards of working the land and nurturing the soul are elegant, eloquent reminders of the importance of listening to your inner muse. Carol Haggas Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "An elegantly written yet also edgily realistic account of small town, small garden life." ~ Kirkus Review "Lisle's writing is precise, detailed and meticulously researched...generous and engaging...She is a disciplined and thoughtful worker unafraid of taking on the heavy work required in her garden and at her writing desk...There is serenity in Lisle's tone as well as authority. She is constantly learning, always observing, unafraid to make changes in her garden and in her life." Michelle Gillette, The Women's Times When I moved from the city to the country, I had no idea how to turn the strip of grass behind my house on a New England village green into the gorgeous flower garden in my mind's eye.. Nevertheless, I wanted to do it myself... I eventually decided to write about the decade of my forties through the "green glasses" of a gardener. My garden notebook grew into this modern pastoral, part garden book and part memoir, which celebrates the role of nature in a contemporary life. From the Introduction "Ultimately, Four Tenths of an Acre is a testament to one woman's glorious engagement with place." When Laurie Lisle fled the city, she was in such a fever to buy a particular old clapboard house on the green of a historic New England village that she didn't notice the awkward shape of the backyard. "When I had seen the surveyor's map of my less than half acre," she writes, "I was shocked at how very long and narrow a rectangle it actually was; on paper, as if seen from above, it looked to me like a fairway on a golf course, and I wondered how I could turn such an awful shape into a graceful garden." Thus begins this modern pastoral, in which Lisle tells how she heaved compost, dug post holes, planted, and replanted--and how she also found herself digging into her feelings about love and loss, work and play, roots and rootlessne