In Praise of Chickens

Praise for Jane S. Smith’s The Garden of Invention:“A colorful, far-reaching book about the genetic, agricultural, economic and legal issues raised by Burbank’s life and legend…Entertaining…[a] well-woven narrative…Impressive.” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times”A first-class portrait – witty, seamless and unflaggingly informed….[The Garden of Invention] brings Burbank to pulsing life even as it teaches plant science, patent law, eugenics, evolution and the fate of the prickly pear….I was, from its first sentence to last, a most grateful reader.” – The Chicago Tribune”A long overdue volume in food literature – a great story, well told.” – Mark Kurlansky, author of Cod and Salt

Jane S. Smith writes about the intersection of science, nature, taste, and popular culture. She received her Ph. D. in English from Yale University and has taught at Northwestern University in fields ranging from literature to preventive medicine. Her history of the first polio vaccine, Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine (William Morrow), received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Elsie de Wolfe: A Life in the High Style (Atheneum) remains the definitive biography of the woman who transformed taste from an attitude into an industry. Her comic novel Fool’s Gold (Zoland) won the Adult Fiction Award from the Society of Midland Authors. Her most recent book, The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants (Penguin Press 2009), was awarded the Caroline Bancroft Prize in Western History. She and her husband live in Chicago, where she works in a very small room with a very large window.