Cutting Back

When Leslie Buck was 35 and running a successful landscaping business in California, she took off for Kyoto for a three-month tree-pruning apprenticeship. It's a classic fish-out-of-water experience--she barely speaks any Japanese, is the only woman on the crew, and must learn to control her emotions. Narrator Caroline McLaughlin captures Buck's experience with energy and an appealing voice. She ably expresses Buck's loneliness, homesickness, exhaustion, and cultural confusion as well as her deep appreciation for the Japanese gardening world. Impressively, she rolls through Japanese names and concepts without hesitation. At first, McLaughlin's rapid pace seems too quick for the gentle and meticulous nature of Japanese pruning and garden design, but she soon relaxes into her narration. And perhaps that mirrors Buck's appreciation for the Japanese way. A.B. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine