Chip Brantley

The man does read a lot, but I was still nerdily excited to hear that Tyler Cowen finished and liked The Perfect Fruit. Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University and author most recently of Create Your Own Economy, writes often about the effects of technology and globalization on the arts, food and culture. For a good Cowen cross-section, read his thoughtful critique of Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, watch his talk at Google on the difference between grants and prizes, and listen to his On the Media appearance to discuss Radiohead's release of In Rainbows.

In the August 28 issue of New Scientist, Jonathan Christison reviews The Perfect Fruit, writing that "you may not find yourself as swept away by the pluot as Brantley was, but you are sure to look at things differently on your next trip to the produce aisle."

Read Jonathan Christison's whole review.

I'm a little late getting mentioning this, but the writer and pomologist David Karp, formerly known as the "Fruit Detective," has a review of the book in last Wednesdsay's Los Angeles Times. David calls the book"an engaging one" and then goes on to say that

it is not just about the Zaigers and Pluots -- that would be a bit much for anyone but die-hard fruit geeks -- but a wide-ranging look inside the California stone fruit industry, its breeders, farmers, history and commerce, its controversies and intrigue. His central theme, the struggle to deliver flavorful fruit despite the compromises of industrial growing and marketing, should interest anyone who cares about food.

David's article about the Zaigers in the September 2000 issue of Gourmet was the first thing I ever read about pluots, and as he did in that piece, he raises some interesting points in the review about the reach of the work the Zaigers and other fruit breeders do.

Read David Karp's whole review.

Phil Stewart is a fruit breeder and the writer behind The Fruit Blog, which I started reading as I was working on The Perfect Fruit. While writing the book, I was most afraid of completely botching some basic principle of fruit breeding or getting the mechanics of the fruit industry all wrong. So I'm very pleased (and not just a little relieved) to know that the book rang true to Phil.

In his incisive review, Phil writes:

I haven't been so pleased with a fruit book in a long time... this book does something else that no other book I've read has really done, at least not as well, and that is to capture what it's like on the inside of the fruit industry... For the people I really want to understand the business I work in, I will be recommending this book... Brantley's writing is engaging, occasionally humorous, and infused with passion for his subject. His excitement about pluots has that slightly unfathomable quality that I find all good fruit authors have... The book is a quick, easy, and rewarding read, and I heartily recommend it to any one who eats fruit."

To be fair, Phil does have some issues with the book. "It's not as technically or historically focused as many single fruit books are," he writes, "which was initially a bit of a disappointment to me." He correctly notes that there's not a ton of science in the book. Nor is there enough Luther Burbank for his liking. I agree with him on both counts.

Honestly, I never wrote much more about the science of fruit breeding, because it was a strain for me to translate into readable prose. (Not saying that it can't be; I just wasn't the person for the job in this case.)

I did have a few more sections about Burbank, specifically about his breeding methods and his work on plumcots. In the end, we cut those out, but I wish I'd been able to incorporate them more smoothly into the book. 

Speaking of Burbank, I've got Jane S. Smith's recently published The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants on my reading list. Smith's bio says that she writes about "the intersection of science, business, popular taste, and social history," and her last book of nonfiction, Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine, won the L.A. Times Book Prize for Science and Technology. So I imagine she covers more of the science of plant and fruit breeding, from Burbank all the way up to Monsanto.

Read Phil Stewart's whole review.

In yesterday's Washington Post, Dan Kois had a short review of The Perfect Fruit, which he called "an entertaining account of a growing season in California's San Joaquin Valley." 

Read Dan Kois's whole review.