I had not seen Alessandro in about fifteen years, even though for a time he dated my historical best friend, Anna, in Florence and they have remained good friends to this day. Anna has kept me abreast of his general doings and goings on over the years, but I had no idea that, 1) he speaks near-perfect English and 2) in addition to being one of Italy’s top-ranked gardeners, he is also a writer.
On a recent trip to the U.S. to promote his book and re-establish some of his connections, he graciously agreed to meet with me at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx and gave me a charming interview. Here is the first part of the interview, with some photos of the gardens he has worked in.

New York Botanical Garden

• Alessandro-Tombelli-18-minsAlessandro-Tombelli-part-I-11-mins

Ilaria: I’m here with my friend Alessandro Tombelli, whom I’ve known for at least 20 years or something like that, and he’s from Florence, as am I. He is an extremely talented and well regarded in international circles gardener. Recently he decided to write a memoir called The Garden Connection: Life and Adventures of a Tuscan Gardener. As I understand it’s a combination of a personal memoir and a professional memoir, is that right?
Alessandro: It is.
Ilaria: Okay, so, Alessandro, tell me a little bit about the genesis of the book. Why did you decide to write it, how long did it take you…? Walk me through the process.
Alessandro: I decided to write this book a few years ago, when I was in Texas. Thanks to my garden connections it happened that I was in Texas, working with a landscape architect from Dallas, and I got involved in all these travels and big projects in the area, and I was thinking about how a few years before I was in Italy, I was in Florence, doing some gardening in these historical gardens. And then I was projected in these big, big goings on in Dallas, Texas. I thought, well, you know, this would be a nice story. It would be a nice story for a book. And all the travels I’d done between and all the people I met. I was there because I met somebody, and I met somebody through somebody else. So there was a real garden connection.
Ilaria: That’s great. And between the time that you first thought of writing the book and the time you wrote it, what happened? Why did it take you several years to actually start writing it?
Alessandro: Well, it happened because I’d been thinking for so long but I was not brave enough to write it. And also you have to concentrate on writing. I remember when I was thinking about this book, when I was taking notes, I had some ideas… Oh, this would be a nice idea for my next book. But I kept it for years before I decided to write it. And one day I wrote something like maybe ten pages, and I kept it maybe for a year or two, I don’t remember exactly. And it happened that I was in North Carolina once, and I was taken to a readers’ group, and when I realized that I said, “Oh, listen, I’ve written something. I have ten pages of my book.”
Ilaria: Quote, unquote.
Alessandro: And this friend said, “Oh, you should bring it and read it.” So I had my ten pages saved on a thumb drive, so I printed them out, I took them to this reading group, and everybody was listening. They said, “Alessandro, we like it, you should write this book.” I said, “Come on, I’m just a beginner. Maybe I should have a ghost writer, someone who writes for me.” Because I’m not a writer, I’m not an author. And they said, “No, you have to write it down.” And my friend, this friend who brought me there, she was…she is a writer, she’s an author. And she said, “If you write the book I’ll edit it for you.”
Ilaria: Wow.
Alessandro: So that was a big kick. So I came back home and after a few months, we corresponded, you know, asking if she was serious about it. And she was committed to doing it.
Ilaria: That’s a very big commitment.
Alessandro: Yeah. And she had no idea, poor Jack, how big a job she was going to do for me. Because I do speak a little English, but my written English was terrible. Anyway, I spent one summer, I was home in my little apartment in Florence, and I started writing. Spending like six, eight hours per day, because I was committed to do it. I had to do it. And she said, “Alessandro, you must finish it by the end of August, let’s say.” So I did it.
Ilaria: And how long did it take you altogether?
Alessandro: Altogether a couple of months.
Ilaria: That’s not long at all.
Alessandro: Yeah.
Ilaria: That’s wonderful.
Alessandro: And many things happened in between. I mean, the computer crashed once, so I had to rewrite part of the book because I lost everything. And a few other things. But anyway, I did it.
Ilaria: It’s so funny to see this: “San Donato in Collina and England.” [Come dire, Compiobbi e New York.
Alessandro: No, fa ridere, eh.] It’s very funny. I tried to put some humor in it.
Ilaria: You know what’s so funny is that I relate to this so well. Because this is my life. I’m half Florentine and half New Yorker, and I can relate… and when I was little I lived on a farm, you know, where I picked the grapes and the olives…
Alessandro: So you know what I’m talking about.
Ilaria: …and the chestnuts. You know, all that stuff.
Alessandro: Were you there in 1985 when the big chill came?
Ilaria: I was. Oh, yes. When all the olive trees died.
Alessandro: They died. I remember at that time, I was not really involved in agriculture then, or horticulture either. But I remember the countryside around Florence had changed completely. Because if you look at Florence from the hills… Well, Florence or the Tuscan countryside… you have this kind of silver gray of the olives.
Ilaria: Of course, I know exactly what you mean, that silvery color.
Alessandro: The season after that big chill was brown. It was awful, awful.
Ilaria: I know, it was so shocking. All that snow. I had a Vespa then. It was buried under the snow, I mean completely buried, for three weeks. When finally the snow melted and I could get my Vespa out of there, I kicked it to start it, and the metal pedal [la leva della messa in moto, fatta di ghisa], it just broke in two from the freezing cold. It was so cold. The first few days there were no buses, because Florence was not equipped. Florence is not equipped to deal with that kind of snow.
Alessandro: Nowadays it’s still not.
Ilaria: Yeah. But it never used to happen like that.
Alessandro: No, it was a special year.
Ilaria: And I had to go everywhere on foot. I had to walk everywhere. I lived in, near via dello Statuto, in via Paoletti, and I had to walk from there to the University… which at least then the University was in Centro and not out in the middle of nowhere where it is now. So it was within walking distance but it took me three-quarters of an hour to go to school every day. Wow. So tell me a little bit about the book.
Alessandro: So the book starts about my life in Florence, the beginning of my horticultural interests, some friends, some private life, people that I met at that time, people who made me to be as I am now. And then from the time I spent in England. It was the year 1987 when I decided to spend some time in England. So I moved there and I worked for one year in a very important garden called Wisley Garden. And there the horticultural world opened for me. It was a revelation, you know. “Oh, I see what gardening is now.” It was not just for the plants, for the garden, but also the people. So I met all the gurus at that time of the English international gardening. People that I had never heard of before. And you know, together with the other students we were going to meetings, we were going to see gardens during the weekend. So it was an amazing year for me. So back from that time in England, when I was in Italy, I was a bit shocked, you know, because from the highest level of horticulture in the world, you go back to Italy, back home, and you do nothing like that. So I was doing some little gardens here and there, but nothing very important. So I spent a couple of years, I was quite depressed. And I wanted to go back to England, I wanted to go back somewhere else. I was thinking about Australia, I was thinking about South Africa, but nothing happened, until I had the opportunity to work in a rather well known garden in Tuscany. It’s called La Foce. So I was able to work in this place. La Foce is a garden in Tuscany. It’s in the Val d’Orcia, the Siena province, and it’s one of the most beautiful gardens in Tuscany, nowadays. So I became the head gardener, and there again I was happy. Because after my time in England I could do some practice. So I was involved in the restoration of the garden, in the upkeep of it, and I was absorbed in all these beautiful things I was looking at, you know there were concerts in the villa, nice people, interesting people, riding horses. So many things, it was really one of the best times of my life. And that opened another door. La Foce opened the door to Villa I Tatti, which is another important villa in Florence, which is owned by Harvard University.
Ilaria: Of course.

La Foce

I Tatti #1

I Tatti #2

Related posts:

1. Author Interview: Mario Kluser – part III In the final segment of our 3-part interview, Mario tells...
2. Author Interview: Amanda Ackroyd – part III This post concludes the series of interviews with Yorkshire author...
3. Author Interview: Mario Kluser, part I In the first of three segments, Mario Kluser tells us...

So my friend Cristina and I took a break for brunch and then got right back to chatting about the pros and cons of having an Amazon Kindle. The more we talked, the more intrigued I was by the implications of the Kindle for publishing, authors, and readers. So, without further ado, here is the rest of my fascinating interview with Cristina.

Ilaria: So, what are some of the other benefits of owning a Kindle that come to mind?


Cristina: Well, in addition to the benefit of being able to read fiction again, I have noticed something else in my behavior. I read a lot of non-fiction, both for personal interest and for professional reasons, but there are many books that, while I find them interesting and intriguing, I don’t necessarily want to own in my bookcase forever. And I don’t feel like spending $24.99 for them, either. Let’s take Outliers, the latest book by Malcolm Gladwell. I was curious about it and had enjoyed his previous books, but I didn’t necessarily want to spend the money. Besides, I just don’t have room to keep every book I buy on my shelves, my apartment is too small. So, for $9.99 I downloaded it to my Kindle and now I’m reading it on the train and at other odd moments here and there.

In my other house in North Carolina my partner and I have two walls full of books, I just can’t afford to keep buying them. What is ever going to happen to all these books. So I also give lots of books away using BookCrossing. Kindle helps me be more efficient in my consumption of books.

Then there is another great advantage that I just thought of. The Kindle allows you to download the first chapter of any book for free as a sample. Two goals are achieved simultaneously this way: 1) If you are curious about a book, you can find out right away if it’s for you or not, and 2) instant gratification. I am curious and also anxious (have I mentioned that I’m a little neurotic?). If I find something I like, I have to have it right away. Before I could order a book on Amazon, but then I’d have to wait for it to be delivered. Now I can download the whole thing to my Kindle in 60 seconds. I love this feature. When I find something that interests me, I have a great sense of urgency, and the Kindle allows me to satisfy this urge.

Ilaria: How about other newspapers besides the Times?

Cristina: We Italians are woefully behind, in this respect. I would love to be able to read Il Manifesto. I would gladly pay for the subscription, because it has always been one of the ways I “do my part.” But there are no Italian newspapers on the Kindle yet. There are several English, French and German papers, but no Italian ones. We need to catch up.

Ilaria: What about Italian books?

Cristina: No, nothing, that I know of. When my sister visits from Italy, she brings me a few books, or I can order them from Internet Book Shop, but the shipping costs are prohibitive. The funny thing is that I haven’t stopped buying books. I still buy one or two books a week, and I get some for free as a faculty member, but perhaps I am digressing here.

Ilaria: Not at all. This reinforces my point that the Kindle is not detrimental to the publishing industry. It doesn’t stop people from buying books. On the contrary. A book you might be interested in but not enough to pay hardcover money for becomes affordable on the Kindle, so you do buy it. And books are like cherries, you can never have just one — you buy one on the Kindle and you have more money to buy the one you really do want to have on your shelf, so you buy that one too. It makes for abundant reading.

Cristina: And then there is another thing. Since I don’t have a lot of time for fiction, I have a lot of novels that I have started but not finished. The Kindle is very lightweight [editor's note: 10.2 ounces], so I don’t have to choose which of the novels I’m in the middle of reading to take on the train. I just pick up the Kindle and then decide what to read once I’m in the subway.

Ilaria: This definitely resonates with me. I have been late to appointments before because I spend five minutes staring at the pile of books on my bedside table and agonizing over which one to bring. I often end up with two or three, and a heavy bag.

Cristina: Between books, folders and papers, my bag is huge and extremely heavy already. Before the Kindle I would most of the time give up on reading for pleasure while commuting because I just couldn’t bear to add one more weight to my bag. And there’s another thing. I commute during rush hour, naturally, so half the time at least I don’t have a seat. The Kindle allows me to read with one hand, so I can read standing up. Before I would resent my book because I would have to leave it in my bag, it would be weighing me down, and I wouldn’t even be able to read it. Those days are over. Also, it has this new technology, iInk, which makes it more like a book. The Kindle is not backlit like a computer screen, so it requires an external light source, just like a regular book. This means that it does not tire the eyes the way the screen does. It’s just like reading a book. And the Kindle 2 is going to be much better. I have already got one on reserve at Amazon.

Ilaria: So my friend who was afraid that the Kindle would kill book sales was wrong?

Cristina: Absolutely. In the old days, for instance, when the first big bookstore chains started opening up all over the place, we used to say that “another bookstore will kill the libraries.” That is not at all true. They feed each other.

Ilaria: The more we read, the more we read. The more channels we have through which to read, the more we read.

Cristina: And it can be seamless, from one place to another, one medium to another. You end up reading constantly.

Ilaria: Thank you so much, Cristina, for this lovely conversation. The Kindle 2 is going straight to the top of my wish list!

So, in summary, here are the advantages of owning a Kindle:

• Being able to move from one environment to another without having to stop reading;
• Being able to read things you normally would not have time for, like fiction and newspapers;
• Being able to download a sample chapter for free, which allows you to find many more books to read;
• The instant gratification of downloading an entire book in 60 seconds;
• Portability and reduced weight in your bag;
• Being able to carry many books with you at one time with no added weight, all inside the Kindle;
• Being able to buy books you ordinarily would not want to spend the money on, because they are less expensive [editor's note: there are some books to which this does not apply, but most bestsellers are $9.99];
• An esthetically pleasing reading experience with no eye strain due to backlit screen, since the Kindle relies on external light in the same way that books do;
• Being able to read standing up, even when there are no seats on the train, with one hand;

Since this conversation with Cristina I have been thinking quite a lot about the Kindle and how it can help the publishing industry and authors as well, and something new occurred to me. One of my goals with this blog is to help new authors become published, and another is to extend the “shelf life” of previously published books. In future posts I am going to explore both of these possibilities. I know that authors who self-publish can get their books published on Kindle, or at least that is what I have heard, so I am going to investigate this avenue. But I also want to find out whether books that are out of print might get a second life on Kindle, without having to be reissued on paper. Then, if interest grows, there can also be another print run. The possibilities are endless! Stay tuned, because we have not heard the last of the Kindle, by a long shot.

Related posts:

1. Review: Amazon Kindle – a conversation with my friend Cristina – part I In the first part of this two-part interview series on...
2. Announcement: visit my aStore (Amazon Store)! In this post I announce the opening of my very...
3. Author Interview: Mario Kluser, part II In the second segment of three, Mario Kluser tells us...