In a departure from gardening books such as Compost Everything, David the Good’s latest release, Turned Earth is best described as Gardening Action and Adventure.
During an old interview David mentioned a possible future book, Tactical Gardening, “a book on hiding food in plain sight and growing death hedges”. I thought he was joking but it turns out bubbling under the surface of everyday life a deadly struggle is being played out between opposing gardening ideologies and vested interests. Who knew there are ancient martial arts based on gardening techniques or that there was a lethal underground organization prepared to kill as they seek primacy for their ideological mix of communism, organic farming and Taoism?
There are many enjoyable aspects to this book. A nice touch is whenever Jack Broccoli is searching on the Internet, he doesn’t go to the large, data gathering, contemptuous of privacy sites, such as Google or Bing, but to good old DuckDuckGo. Not surprising in a novel by David the Good there are many botanical facts scattered throughout the text, though not in an overwhelming or pedantic way. One pet peeve of Jack Broccoli is the common misunderstanding that what is known as a sycamore tree in North America is related to a sycamore in the Holy Land (actually a fig producer, pollinated by wasps). Finally, I enjoy the G rated story line. There is some violence but overall, Jack Broccoli is a good Christian trying to make his way in a bad world with lethal gardening ideologies. It is not a children’s book by any means but well suited for them to read.
Turned Earth is a fun read and it’s well worth grabbing a copy.