Product Description

A warm, touching and funny book on family, gardening, Hollywood, marriage and life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1789994 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 220 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This journal of a comically obsessed gardener chronicles not only the plantings, prunings and what "went bust" but also the emotional divagations of a hip New Yorker transplanted to California. Gardening metaphors abound here to illuminate the author's relationships with her divorced parents, the challenges of siblings and her mixed emotions about an imminent marriage to her longtime companion. Frustrations lurk, both personal and garden variety, especially in the garden where she works so hard "and it still looks like hell." Among gardening tips and rose obsessions are wry observations about sisterhood and the comic aspects of the forthcoming wedding. Spiegelman, an assistant director and a member of the Director's Guild of America, writes knowingly of the travails of responsible adulthood in a way that is appealing to women.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Poor Annie finds so much to complain about?her past, her job, her garden, her shrink, her relatives, her fiance. "Everything sucks," she writes, "especially this stupid garden journal." For one year, while tending her California garden, Spiegelman muses about growing up in a broken home in New York City and vying with her three sisters for the love of an angry mother and an absent father. When her companion of seven years proposes, she worries for months because marriage "means fighting, leaving, and broken promises." Spiegelman's hostility, depression, and negative attitude pervade the book. Her rambling, unpolished style is laden with recurrent cliches and vulgar slang. Not recommended.?Ilse Heidmann, San Marcos, Tex.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Call it unorthodox or label it irreverent; by any standard, Spiegelman's garden journal is decidedly unconventional. An irrepressible New Yorker who works in the movie industry as a first assistant director, Annie tends a Northern California garden and cares for cats with significant other, Bill. Aside from musings on their evolving garden landscape, her diary chronicles the relationship as it moves in the direction of marriage. But for Annie--still shell-shocked from her parents' bitter divorce--becoming a bride is a less than smooth passage. As she faces up to the emotional roadblocks left over from childhood, there are frequent and spirited interactions with mother, father, and assorted sisters, infusing her journal with great heaps of love and laughter. Annie's sassy, cynical veneer scarcely conceals a fervent enthusiasm for life's most essential elements. Alice Joyce

Customer Reviews

Just the book I was looking for....
'Annie's Garden Journal' was like reading someone's diary. I've felt all the same emotions Annie writes about, and some of them were painful, but I could laugh about it! I read this book in 3 separate sittings, didn't want it to end! I'm glad to see that she's working on another book, I'll be sure to get it too!

Sometimes funny, pretty pages, and interesting.
I enjoyed the honesty of the book and how the author shared her life with her readers. Honesty is a quality not often found in authors, especially new ones. I'm eagerly awaiting Annie's next book, and interested in how Bill's chiropractic career is going.

The worst book I've read in a long time.
Please, choose something else. This book is so terrible it makes me consider being a writer. Everything about it is embarassingly cliche. She has a mother and sisters who she really loves, but GOSH, they sure bicker and drive her crazy! She has a boyfriend who she really loves, but GOSH, marriage is so scary! To make things worse, her sisters' names are Carol, Sharon, and (?), but she calls them "Ca," "Sha," and "Ga" throughout the entire book. She also uses the word "bust" at least 200 times, which is incredibly annoying. She also seems to think she is the first person on earth to be politically liberal and have morals. I think that I need to say no more after telling you that this is an actual sentence from the book: "I rollerbladed around downtown, rocking to Annie Lennox and U2 on my Walkman." Please, the world is full of great literature. Find some, this isn't it!!