Alternative reading
Fences and Gates, Walkways, Walls and Drives
by E. Annie Proulx
E Annie Proulx is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain: she has also won the PEN/Faulkner Award, the O. Henry Award and the Dos Passos Prize, and is thus one of the most lauded of all American writers. But her literary apprenticeship was spent writing a number of practical self-help manuals. They include Sweet and Hard Cider: Making It, Using It and Enjoying It; The Complete Dairy Foods Cookbook: How to Make Everything from Cheese to Custard in Your Kitchen; The Gourmet Gardener: Growing Choice Fruits and Vegetables with Spectacular Results; and Plan and Make Your Own Fences and Gates, Walkways, Walls and Drives. The back cover of the latter informs us that ‘Annie keeps livestock, hunts, fishes, plays the fiddle and is an expert on country crafts. She also writes books…’ It begins with a chapter entitled ‘Give In to the Urge to Arrange and Improve’, which is, in a nutshell, the Tao of Proulx.
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