Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Cutting Back
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1965
WEBSITE: https://www.lesliebuckauthor.com/
CITY:
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | n 2017000222 |
|---|---|
| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017000222 |
| HEADING: | Buck, Leslie, 1965- |
| 000 | 00443cz a2200133n 450 |
| 001 | 10343075 |
| 005 | 20170103172016.0 |
| 008 | 170103n| azannaabn |n aaa |
| 010 | __ |a n 2017000222 |
| 040 | __ |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC |
| 046 | __ |f 19651001 |
| 100 | 1_ |a Buck, Leslie, |d 1965- |
| 670 | __ |a Cutting back, 2017: |b ECIP t.p. (Leslie Buck) data view (professional American gardener) |
| 670 | __ |a Email from publr., 01-03-17 |b (Leslie Gail Buck; b. October 1, 1965) |
PERSONAL
Born October 1, 1965.
EDUCATION:University of California, Berkeley, B.A.; also attended the School of Fine Arts (Bordeaux, France) and Merritt College; studied under Uetoh Zoen, a Japanese landscape designer, 2000.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Garden designer and writer. Creator of the workshop, Pruning for Beginners.
AVOCATIONS:Sailing, sketching.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Leslie Buck is a garden designer and writer living in California. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Buck also attended Merritt College and the School of Fine Arts, in Bordeaux, France. At Merritt College, she met the bonsai artist and pruning instructor, Dennis Makishima, who became her mentor. In 2000, Buck continued her education by traveling to Kyoto to study with a respected Japanese landscaping company called Uetoh Zoen. She is the creator of a gardening workshop called Pruning for Beginners.
In 2017, Buck released Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto, a memoir detailing the time she spent in Japan, as well as other aspects of her life. At age thirty-five, she chose to step away from the pressures of life and move to Japan for a three-month apprenticeship with Uetoh Zoen. Buck had been designing gardens on her own, but she felt the apprenticeship would help move her work forward. In Japan, she found it difficult to communicate and to understand the country’s culture. However, Buck learned to adapt over time. She ultimately developed a deeper appreciation for Japanese horticulture and respect for the devotion the gardeners there have for their jobs.
Meg Nola, reviewer in ForeWord, asserted: “Buck’s memoir features a poetry of expression tempered by the keen eye of a gardener.” Nola added: “Cutting Back is told with beautiful, carefully crafted language and a perceptively candid voice.” “This is an absorbing read about the formative interplay of humans, cultures, and gardens,” commented a Publishers Weekly critic. Writing on the San Francisco Chronicle website, Pam Pierce suggested: “This book allows us a rich and nuanced view into what creates these craftspeople, and into what the author learned. Better yet, she brought those lessons back to her Bay Area clients and, through this fascinating book, to the rest of us.” Esther Jackson, contributor to the Plant Talk website, remarked: “Read Cutting Back for insight into Japanese gardening culture, for descriptions of naturalistic Japanese gardens, or if you enjoy travel memoirs somewhat in the vein of Eat, Pray, Love or Wild.” “The book should appeal even to readers not especially interested in gardening,” noted Charmaine Chan on the Post Magazine website. Reviewing the volume on the Foggy Pine Books website, Patricia Johann stated: “The author’s descriptions of gardens and pruning were very vivid and informative.” A critic on the New York Times website described the book as “unusual and entertaining” and “not a bad lesson for any gardener.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
ForeWord, April 25, 2017, Meg Nola, review of Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto.
ProtoView, May, 2017, review of Cutting Back.
Publishers Weekly, March 6, 2017, review of Cutting Back, p. 53.
ONLINE
Foggy Pine Books, http://www.foggypinebooks.com/ (February 21, 2017), Patricia Johann, review of Cutting Back.
Leslie Buck Website, https://www.lesliebuckauthor.com/ (November 9, 2017).
New York Times Online, https://www.nytimes.com/ (May 29, 2017), review of Cutting Back.
Plant Talk, https://www.nybg.org/ (June 20, 2017), Esther Jackson, review of Cutting Back.
Post, http://www.scmp.com/ (June 10, 2017), Charmaine Chan, review of Cutting Back.
San Francisco Chronicle Online, http://www.sfchronicle.com/ (May 12, 2017), Pam Pierce, review of Cutting Back.
San Francisco Lit Crawl Website, https://litcrawlsanfrancisco2017.sched.com/ (November 9, 2017), author profile.
Timber Press Website, http://www.timberpress.com/ (November 9, 2017), author profile.*
ABOUT
Leslie Buck has been a natural garden designer and aesthetic pruner in the San Francisco Bay Area for over two decades. During that time, she has lectured regularly and led many workshops, including her specialty workshop “Pruning for Beginners.”
She holds a fine arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley, attended the School of Fine Arts in Bordeaux, France, and studied horticulture at Merritt College, where she met her mentor Dennis Makishima, a world-renowned pruning instructor and bonsai artist.
She has worked, taught, and volunteered in hundreds of private landscapes as well as dozens of public gardens, including Portland Japanese Garden, Hakone Japanese Garden, and Tassajara Zen Center.
In 2000, Leslie studied in Kyoto with Uetoh Zoen, one of the oldest and most highly acclaimed landscape companies in Japan. Her time in Japan became the subject of her memoir, Cutting Back—a story full of heart and humor.
Drawing from her experience in Kyoto, Leslie has planted native gardens around her house in California. She continues to sketch whenever she travels and loves sailing in the Berkeley Bay.
Leslie Buck's New York Time's reviewed garden memoir, Cutting Back-My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto, has been written about in the Washington Post, SF Chronicle along with blogs and podcasts. Leslie continues to have adventures while designing gardens throughout the Bay Area, which fertilize her stories. Leslie will be reading from her memoir-some photos from her journey can be found in the "photo diary" on her website.
Leslie Buck is a garden designer and aesthetic pruner who specializes in natural design in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has over two decades of gardening experience, and a fine art degree from U.C. Berkeley and the Bordeaux School of Fine Arts in France. In 2000, Leslie studied with Uetoh Zoen, one of the oldest and most highly acclaimed landscape companies in Japan. Leslie has worked, taught, and volunteered in hundreds of private landscapes and as well as dozens of public gardens including the Portland Japanese Garden, Hakone Japanese Garden, Tassajara Zen Center, and Merritt College
QUOTED: "Buck's memoir features a poetry of expression tempered by the keen eye of a gardener."
"Cutting Back, is told with beautiful, carefully crafted language and a perceptively candid voice."
Cutting Back; My Apprenticeship in the
Gardens of Kyoto
Meg Nola
ForeWord.
(Apr. 25, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 ForeWord http://www.forewordmagazine.com
Full Text:
Leslie Buck; CUTTING BACK; Timber Press (Nonfiction: Autobiography & Memoir) 24.95 ISBN: 9781604697933
Byline: Meg Nola
Buck's memoir features a poetry of expression tempered by the keen eye of a gardener.
When Leslie Buck turned thirty-five, she ignored society's pressures to start focusing on marriage, children, home ownership, and retirement accounts, and instead followed a curious urge to become an apprentice at Uetoh Zoen, one of Japan's most revered landscaping companies. Buck's memoir of this sojourn, Cutting Back, is told with beautiful, carefully crafted language and a perceptively candid voice.
Though Buck was already a successful garden designer in California, she willingly took the huge step backward into apprenticeship while uprooting herself and moving halfway across the world. Despite her affinity for Japan, she still struggled with language barriers and the unique complexities of both Japanese culture and horticulture. Beyond that, her coworkers at the Kyoto landscaping company were all male -- and generally perplexed by the American woman who had joined their crew.
While Cutting Back excels on many levels, the book's core is its intuitive appreciation for nature. Trees, gardens, flowers, koi, birds, and downpours of rain are wonderfully described, with a poetry of expression tempered by the keen eye of a gardener. Buck is earnest, hard-working, and appealingly truthful; she strives to learn from and keep up with her often impassive male colleagues, though she is frequently overwhelmed by exhaustion, the elements, or her own emotions. She always persists.
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Cutting Back is in keeping with its Japanese setting, reflecting the significance of subtle beauty, small gestures, and a respect for tradition. Buck's triumphs are minor, but well earned and quietly relished. In a country where gardeners are highly regarded and primarily men, Buck receives surprising encouragement from a group of elegantly dressed Japanese women, who see her toiling in her muddy uniform and urge her, Gambatte, or "Don't give up."
Buck's ability to give up at the right time, however, leaves Cutting Back with a fitting, Zen-like conclusion.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Nola, Meg. "Cutting Back; My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto." ForeWord, 25 Apr.
2017. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1& id=GALE%7CA490947749&it=r&asid=5945ea384494445affb049b7e18f1d67. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A490947749
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Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto
ProtoView.
(May 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Ringgold, Inc. http://www.protoview.com/protoview
Full Text:
9781604697933
Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto Leslie Buck
Timber Press
2017
279 pages
$24.95
Hardcover
SB458
In this memoir, garden designer and aesthetic pruner Leslie Buck describes her experiences as an American woman working in a male-dominated field in Japan. She details the choices that led her to Uetoh Zoen, a highly regarded landscape company in Kyoto that had never employed a woman before. She reveals her struggles to adapt to a new culture and explains what she learned about gardening. ([umlaut] Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto." ProtoView, May 2017.
PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1& id=GALE%7CA492491558&it=r&asid=ee3c38edec371cdd66eaa01ca53bedef. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A492491558
QUOTED: "This is an absorbing read about the formative interplay of humans, cultures, and gardens."
3 of 4 10/22/17, 8:59 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto
Publishers Weekly.
264.10 (Mar. 6, 2017): p53. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto Leslie Buck. Timber, $24.95 (280p)
ISBN 978-1-60469-793-3
Buck is a California garden designer and aesthetic pruner who went to Japan for a three-month apprenticeship in Kyoto, working in some of Japan's renowned gardens. Her memoir is a mix of gardening insight, cross-cultural observations, and personal development. Buck has as good an eye for cultural dissonance as she does for pines that need pruning. She is also unsparing in her self-observations, wrestling with her American ego in the context of another country's work culture. The through line of her narrative is the slow development of her professional relationship with her crew boss, Nakaji, whose leadership style is primarily management by yelling. The changing nuances of her understanding of him are particularly engrossing and give the book a kind of literary skeleton. This is an absorbing read about the formative interplay of humans, cultures, and gardens. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto." Publishers Weekly, 6 Mar. 2017, p.
53. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1& id=GALE%7CA484973685&it=r&asid=0cf048f0ae77ba819880e56dd470ff50. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A484973685
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QUOTED: "This book allows us a rich and nuanced view into what creates these craftspeople, and into what the author learned. Better yet, she brought those lessons back to her Bay Area clients and, through this fascinating book, to the rest of us."
Leslie Buck's "Cutting Back": A memoir from gardens of Kyoto
By Pam Peirce
May 5, 2017 Updated: May 12, 2017 11:23am
1
Leslie Buck in a California Japanese Garden in the Berkeley Hills landscaped by Shigiru Namba (who landscaped Larry Ellisons Woodside garden). Buck has pruned this tree over the years. Photo: Maya Blum
Photo: Maya Blum
Leslie Buck in a California Japanese Garden in the Berkeley Hills landscaped by Shigiru Namba (who landscaped Larry Ellisons Woodside garden). Buck has pruned this tree over the years.
Leslie Buck’s goal of becoming an apprentice gardener in Japan began when she was studying horticulture at Oakland’s Merritt College. When she joined other students pruning a campus pine in the Japanese manner, she knew what direction she wanted her education to take. She recounts that journey in her memoir “Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto” (Timber Press, $21.48).
After further study of Japanese-style pruning and bonsai growing, as well as Japanese language and culture, Buck made her leap of faith. With no job offer and only a pocketful of letters of reference, she flew to Japan with the goal of becoming an apprentice.
At first, she feared that she might end up just sitting and drawing in some fine Kyoto public gardens during her entire stay, watching the pruners she longed to join. But after her initial fears and confusion about how to proceed, she recounts her successful interview, and then describes her experiences working with a fast-paced, all-male crew of gardeners in a renowned Kyoto gardening firm.
Buck sharpens her tools during her apprenticeship in Kyoto, Japan. Photo: Leslie Buck
Photo: Leslie Buck
Buck sharpens her tools during her apprenticeship in Kyoto, Japan.
Buck’s book is as much a story of bravery and the challenge of adapting to an unfamiliar culture as it is of horticulture. Anyone contemplating a brave career gamble will learn from it. However, those with an interest in horticulture will find the story particularly engrossing, as will anyone who wants to better understand Japanese culture and Japanese gardens.
Buck learned the tools and techniques of the gardening trade. Traditional Japanese gardens, she learned, are 90 percent native plants, and most are pruned to look natural, not given the sheared look common in American imitations. Subtle symbols guide viewers through them: A wide stepping stone marks a viewing point; a black rope tied around a rock means “Do not step past here” or “This is a Sacred Place.”
Japanese gardeners train for years, then work in silence, six days a week, with intense dedication. Foremen instruct mainly by criticizing mistakes, or even responding to mistakes with mirth. Gardeners are revered by other Japanese for their dedication and long training. This book allows us a rich and nuanced view into what creates these craftspeople, and into what the author learned. Better yet, she brought those lessons back to her Bay Area clients and, through this fascinating book, to the rest of us.
QUOTED: "Read Cutting Back for insight into Japanese gardening culture, for descriptions of naturalistic Japanese gardens, or if you enjoy travel memoirs somewhat in the vein of Eat, Pray, Love or Wild."
Cutting Back in Kyoto
Posted in From the Library on June 20 2017, by Esther Jackson
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
Photo of Cutting BackCutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto by Leslie Buck is part memoir, part travelogue, and part garden design narrative. In 1999, Buck, then the owner of a pruning business in California, traveled to Japan in pursuit of an internship. Having worked with Japanese and Japanese-taught mentors previously, Buck was determined to gain additional training from Japanese craftspeople working in Japan’s famed gardens. Through the help of contacts in Kyoto, Buck obtained an internship at Uetoh Zoen, one of the oldest and most respected landscape companies in Kyoto.
For the most part, it was interesting to read about Buck’s experience working on a pruning-only garden crew, as well as to learn about her attempts to understand and navigate Japanese culture as an American woman. Buck wrote that her “Bossman” was constantly challenging her with progressively more difficult tasks, and for that reason she never fully settled in to her internship or hit her stride. By the end of the book, Buck seemed to have learned about Japanese work ethic, culture, and gardening practices in spite of forgetting all the Japanese language she had learned (as she claimed).
Thematically, Cutting Back was enjoyable, although Buck’s narrative did become grating at times. For example, when recalling many of the projects she worked on, Buck often flavored her prose with complaints about the task or negative comments about her own abilities. It’s evident that Buck was suffering from imposter syndrome at many points during her internship, which is understandable, owing to her relative unfamiliarity with Japanese language and work culture. Nevertheless, the thread of negativity that stretches through the story became tedious at times.
Read Cutting Back for insight into Japanese gardening culture, for descriptions of naturalistic Japanese gardens, or if you enjoy travel memoirs somewhat in the vein of Eat, Pray, Love or Wild.
QUOTED: "The book should appeal even to readers not especially interested in gardening."
Memoir of an American in Kyoto learning to prune is a story of craft and culture
Leslie Buck focuses on cross-cultural differences in her book about becoming a gardener in Japan, a profession as well-regarded as medicine
10 Jun 2017
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Cutting Back
by Leslie Buck
Timber Press
This should be on the reading lists of university Japanese studies courses because of its insights into the country’s apprenticeship systems. Cutting Back tells of Buck’s sojourn in Kyoto, where she studied pruning while working with a landscaping company. She also spent hours simply observing how others snipped trees in the former capital’s beautiful gardens, many of which, to her surprise, were wilder than expected and 90 per cent planted with native stock. Put together from the detailed journals the American author kept, the book is part memoir, although the focus is on cross-cultural differences discovered mostly while under the wing of her “bossman”. He and other garden craftsmen, she noticed, were as respected as doctors, and the Japanese government assured them a lifetime of free health care and affordable housing in return for their decades-long training before starting their own businesses. Buck was a novelty in Kyoto because she was a gaijin and in a traditionally male-dominated occupation. The book should appeal even to readers not especially interested in gardening.
Charmaine Chan
QUOTED: "The author's descriptions of gardens and pruning were very vivid and informative."
Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto by Leslie Buck
2/21/2017
0 Comments
This book surprised me. Despite being an avid gardener and a huge fan of garden lit, I have never been overly fascinated by
Japanese (or any far east) culture. So I wasn't necessarily expecting to enjoy both major aspects of this memoir. However, I did.
I found Buck's undertaking unusual enough, and her story compelling enough, to make a good read. I did find the book quite repetitive in its insights into the rigors of learning a craft (in her case pruning) well and culture shock, though. In fact, I'd say that the book could easily be shortened by about 25% without losing much in the way of content.
I should also say that I didn't particularly like the writing style of the book. By that, I mean the way the sentences were
actually constructed. Many seemed very simplistic both in form and content, almost to the point of being glib. In fact, if I have any major beef with this book, it is that the conclusions of nearly all of the author's ruminations --- whether at different points along the way or overall --- seem too tidy, too predictable, too pat. Despite being on a fascinating journey, she did not seem to probe her experiences very deeply. Everything seemed so... tame. This was almost maddening to me as I read.
It would have been nice to know what the author did after returning, presumably to the US. How did she put her new-found experience and insight to use?
Still, the author's descriptions of gardens and pruning were very vivid and informative. While Cutting Back isn't my new favorite book, I definitely found it well worth reading.
--Patricia Johann
QUOTED: "unusual and entertaining"
"not a bad lesson for any gardener."
My fantasies of moving to Kyoto were in full bloom when I picked up an unusual and entertaining memoir by Leslie Buck. Years ago, she left her successful landscape business in Northern California to apprentice herself to some master gardeners in Japan. CUTTING BACK: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto (Timber Press, $24.95) opens with her anxiously pruning a tree in a “not very old” garden in Kyoto (“only 350 years,” as a co-worker whispers). In this memoir, Buck chronicles three long and difficult seasons.
Her Japanese is weak, so she works in a dazed state of incomprehension; rarely does someone pause to interpret. Her bosses — donning pristine white gloves every day — just yell or are coldly silent. The hours are unrelenting, six days a week. She must wear her jikatabi, two-toed cloth slippers, even in the snow. Her ego suffers as she descends from being among the best of American tree pruners to the status of a beginner in Japan. Sexism abounds. She leaves behind a quasi-committed boyfriend — the only part of the story that feels forced. He might have been pruned.
The dream of this adventure was one thing; what Buck experiences proves “tiresome, mundane and repetitive.” She suffers, complains and cries; she’s lonely and cold and sick. But she works harder than she ever has before. And she learns — about durability and resilience. She learns to prune trees exquisitely. Most of all, she learns that “an apprentice must … be the good student.” Not a bad lesson for any gardener.