Can't Buy Me Bulbs

Am I the only one who loves to read catalogs? Evidently not. From the Morning News, a lovely essay on the language of seed catalogs by Jessica Francis Kane, perfect for a sunny-but-still-cold (sort of) morning in April, when I am lonely for the smell of broken ground. Luckily, she brings it around to books, which I have plenty of:

For a scarlet beauty called the Prince of Austria: “It’s one of history’s most fragrant tulips (violets? orange blossoms?), and on a sunny day it will draw you across the garden.”

I like that poetic parenthetical, reaching yet failing to define the scent. Would that book publishers’ catalogs were sometimes so honest and vague. For the next wunderkind’s debut: “It’s one of the decade’s most forceful novels (sledge hammer? Norman Mailer?), and if you leave it open on your nightstand it will draw you a mongoose.”

Read the whole thing here.