Bøger af Des Kennedy

This is the spellbinding story of six young dreamers who set out from Vancouver in the seventies to haphazardly establish a back-to-the-land commune on a small island in the Salish Sea.Against all odds, the dream endures for half a century through fierce internecine squabbling, occasional community uproar, births and deaths, disasters in animal husbandry, the War in the Woods, police raids and the blandishments of oily developers. But throughout it all what abides is the land itself, its gifts and spirits and seasonal graces. A story within a story, the tale is told by the commune’s sole remaining occupant to an enigmatic stranger. Herself a recent urban exile exploring the ways of rural living, she succeeds in coaxing him through his rememberings away from grief into renewed life.Des Kennedy brings his signature humor and intimate knowledge of gardens and woodlands to this engaging novel. Throughout Commune, Kennedy poses the big questions—how do we best live our lives? Build community? Create a new paradigm for raising kids, growing food and honoring the genius of our place?

Accomplished novelist, satirist, and garden writer Des Kennedy describes his life journey from a childhood of strict Irish Catholicism in England to a charmed existence amid the gardens of his Gulf Island home in British Columbia. From his First Holy Communion to his days as a young seminarian, through the Beat poetry scene in New York and the social upheavals of the 1960s, this monk-turned-pilgrim pursues a quest for meaning and purpose. After leaving monastic life and moving west, Kennedy takes up a new vocation in what has been called the Church of the Earth. On a rural acreage, he and his partner build their home from recycled and hand-hewn materials and create gardens that provide food as well as a symbiosis with the Earth that is as profoundly spiritual as past religious rituals. Spiced with irreverence and an eye for the absurd, The Way of a Gardener ranges over environmental activism, aboriginal rights, writing for a living, amateur wood butchery, the protocols of small community living, and the devilish obscenity of a billy goat at stud.

AN ECOLOGY OF ENCHANTMENT captures the seasonal rhythms of the remarkable natural garden author Des Kennedy shares with his partner on British Columbia's Denman Island. In 52 week-by-week reflections, he explores the triumphs, failures, mishaps, and magic of a year-long tango with nature. Des Kennedy offers his unique combination of sensitivity, zany humor, and deep understanding of the natural world.