American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide - Hardcover

by Susan Barba (Editor), Leanne Shapton (Illustrator)

A unique, stunningly illustrated exploration of North American wildflowers, weaving together history, folklore, and literature.

This beautiful coffee table book pairs the detailed botanical knowledge of a field guide with the evocative power of a literary anthology, offering a new way to appreciate the flora around us. Beyond being a simple identification guide, American Wildflowers is a rich journey through the history, cultural significance, and enduring beauty of the American landscape.

A perfect gift for anyone who seeks a deeper connection to the American landscape, this book is a winner of the American Horticultural Society Book Award.

Each entry is a meticulously crafted profile that includes:

• Striking, full-color botanical illustrations for accurate identification.
• Essential scientific and habitat information.
• Fascinating histories of medicinal, culinary, and decorative uses.
• Cultural folklore and myths associated with the species.
• Poetic and literary excerpts from naturalists, poets, and writers like Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, John Muir, and Mary Oliver, highlighting the plant's place in American consciousness.

Perfect for gardeners, nature lovers, hikers, and literature enthusiasts alike, this book celebrates the biodiversity of North America and shows how wildflowers have inspired--and continue to inspire--our greatest thinkers and artists.

With exquisite watercolors by National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Leanne Shapton throughout, editor Susan Barba has gathered insightful and meaningful writing from contributors including:

• botanists William Bartram, George Washington Carver, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, and horticultural writers Neltje Blanchan and Eleanor Perényi
• essayists Aldo Leopold, Lydia Davis, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil
• poets Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams and T. S. Eliot to Allen Ginsberg and Robert Creeley, Lucille Clifton and Louise Glück, Natalie Diaz and Jericho Brown

Author Biography

Susan Barba is a poet, translator, and editor for the New York Review of Books. She is the author of Fair Sun (2017) and geode (2020), a finalist for the New England Book Awards, and the Massachusetts Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Yale Review, Antioch Review, Raritan, and Harvard Review. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Leanne Shapton is a Canadian artist, writer, and publisher and is the art editor at the New York Review of Books. She has contributed illustrations to a number of magazines, journals, and books, including Women in Clothes, a collaborative project with Sheila Heti and Heidi Julavits; and her own Swimming Studies, which won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She lives in New York City.