Spotlight on Gardening

Our unseasonably warm spring has brought out the blooms and the plans for this year's garden. Whether you've a green thumb or black (or aren't sure what color your thumb may be!), Carnegie-Stout has a gardening book for you!

Be sure to check out last year's gardening post, found here:
carnegiestout.blogspot.com/2011/05/gardening-season.html

Iowa State University's Iowa Extension also has some great information for gardening in Iowa.

And don't forget our post on gardening themed cozy mysteries: carnegiestout.blogspot.com/2011/11/cozy-mysteries-gardening.html

The Hobby Farmer
Farm City by Novella Carpenter
(630.9173 CAR) Ms. Carpenter moved to downtown Oakland with her boyfriend and started a squatter garden in a neighboring vacant lot. Her garden quickly expands to include bees, chickens, turkeys, and pigs. A colorful and personal story about the modern relationship to the food we eat and its production.


Growing at the Speed of Life by Graham Kerr
(635 KER) Mr. Kerr, cookbook author and host of a cooking program, writes about his experience with his own garden, inspired by the sustainability and local food movements. In addition, his book includes tips and recipes.

The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball
(630.92 KIM) Ms. Kimball, a Manhattan journalist, meets and falls for Mark, a farmer. They move to upstate New York to start their own farm, and experiment in community agriculture. One part hands on exploration of the sustainable movement, one part fish out of water, and one part romances makes for an entertaining read.

If you want to try your own adventure in urban or hobby farming, check out these books:

• Urban Homesteading by Rachel Kaplan (640 KAP)
• Your Farm in the City by Lisa Taylor (630.9173 TAY)
• The Joy of Hobby Farming by Michael Levatino (630.68 LEV)

How to Grow a Garden

• The Edible Front Yard: creating curb appeal with fruits, flowers, vegetables, and herbs by Ivette Soler (635 SOL)

• High-Impact, Low-Carbon Gardening: 1001 ways to garden sustainably by Alice Bowe (635.048 BOW)

• The Midwestern Native Garden: native alternatives to nonnative flowers and plants by Charlotte Adelman (635.951 ADE)

• Perennial Vegetables: from artichoke to zuiki taro, a gardener’s guide to over 100 delicious, easy-to-grow edibles by Eric Toensmeier (635 TOE)

• Slow Gardening: a no-stress philosophy for all senses and seasons by Felder Rushing (635.9 RUS)

• The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Own Food: save money, live better, and enjoy life with food from your garden or orchard by Monte Burch (635 BUR)

• The Vegetable Gardener’s Container Bible: how to grow a bounty of food in pots, tubs, and other containers by Edward C. Smith (635 SMI)

Gardening Magazines
Horticulture
Better Homes and Gardens
Birds & Blooms
Hobby Farms
Organic Gardening
This Old House
Fine Gardening



Please stop by the Recommendations Desk on the first floor, check out NoveList Plus on the library's website, or visit W. 11th & Bluff next week for more reading suggestions. Or submit a Personal Recommendations request, and we'll create a reading list just for you!

Bestseller Read-Alikes for the week of March 26th

Can’t wait to get your hands on the latest best-seller, but the hold list is too long? To tide you over, every week we’ll offer similar titles and authors to the week’s fiction and nonfiction best sellers.

Fiction

Once again at #1 on the bestsellers list is Jodi Picoult's Lone Wolf (click here for read-alikes for that book). At #2 is the final installment in the Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi series, Apocalypse by Troy Denning. In this novel, Jedi and Sith face off—with  the planet Coruscant as their battlefield. For the Sith, it’s the chance to restore their dominance over the galaxy that forgot them for so long. For Abeloth, it’s a giant step in her quest to conquer all life everywhere. For Luke Skywalker, it’s a call to arms to eradicate the Sith and their monstrous new master once and for all.

Denning (also known as Richard Awlinson) has written a number of other Star Wars books, in series, such as Dark Nest and as stand-alone novels, such as Tatooine Ghost.

If you're looking for other Star Wars series, try Legacy of the Force, which begins with the novel Betrayal by Aaron Allston, in which Jacen Solo (son of Han and Leia) and his apprentice Ben Skywalker (Luke's son) are ambushed and uncover evidence that a rebellion is brewing.

If you're looking for a new sci-fi series similar to Star Wars,try the Saga of Seven Suns by Kevin Anderson. The series begins with Hidden Empire. As one of three known intelligent races in the star-traveling distant future, the human race wonders at the disappearance of the Klikiss race and examines its home planet technologies, one of which is a device that awakens a warlike fourth race.

Click here for more fiction bestsellers...

Nonfiction

The top two nonfiction books on the bestsellers list are familiar titles. Holding strong at #1 is  American Sniper by Chris Kyle (click here for read-alikes for that book from last week). Number 2 this week is Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier by Ree Drummond.

This is the third cook book written by Drummond, who is began writing on her blog The Pioneer Woman Cooks!. Her latest features "simple-but-scrumptious" recipes, including Perfect Pancakes, Cowgirl Quiche, Sloppy Joes, Italian Meatball Soup, White Chicken Enchiladas, and spicy Carnitas Pizza.

Other books similar to Pioneer Woman Cooks include:

Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook by Bobby Flay - Celebrity Chef Bobby Flay presents a collection of 150 recipes for the drinks, appetizers, soups, salads, main dishes, sides, sauces, desserts, and brunch dishes.The book also includes cooking advice and over 100 color photos.

The Farm Chicks in the Kitchen: Live Well, Laugh Often, Cook Much by Serena Thompson and Terry Edwards - Entrepreneurs, bloggers and contributing editors to Country Living, Thompson and Edwards first book combines stories, craft ideas and recipes such as Enchilada Soup, Blackberry Crisp, Chocolate Butter Cake, Beet Salad and Lemon Cookies.

Click here for more nonfiction bestselllers ...

If you'd like more recommendations, stop by the Recommendations Desk on the first floor, check out NoveList Plus on the library's website, or visit W. 11th & Bluff next week for more reading suggestions. Or submit a Personal Recommendations request, and we'll create a reading list just for you!

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

When A Discovery of Witches was published a year ago, it spent some time on the bestsellers list. This of course prompted me to put a hold on the book and it went to the top of my "to be read" list. At a daunting 579 pages, A Discovery of Witches slowly began to fall to the bottom of that list. However, as the first book in the All Souls Trilogy I decided that I needed to read book one before book two, Shadow of the Night, comes out this July.

Diana Bishop is a witch. She comes from a long line of witches on both sides of her family. Her mother, Rebecca, was descended from Bridget Bishop who was hung July 10, 1692 in Salem. Her father, Stephen, was descended from Elizabeth Proctor, another accused witch in Salem. In 1986, when Diana was 7, her parents went to Africa and never came back. Diana was raised by her aunt Sarah. Sarah and Diana are the last of the Bishop line but after Diana's parents die she decides she does not want to be a witch and makes and effort to suppress her magic.

Diana is a brilliant scholar and has published several books on alchemy. Her studies take her to Oxford where she spends her time in the library examining one ancient text after another. Diana's life changes when she requests a manuscript written by a man named Elias Ashmole. Simply known as Ashmole 782, Diana knows there is something magical about the manuscript the minute she touches it. In fact the book refuses to open until she lays her palm on the cover to introduce herself to the book. Diana discovers that there are three pages missing from the book and that there seems to be additional text moving underneath the regular text. Frightened by the power she feels in Ashmole 782, Diana returns it to the library archives. By opening Ashmole 782, Diana has now attracted the attention of the other "creatures" in the library and beyond. There are four races in the world, humans, witches, vampires and daemons. As a rule the four races do not mix and the humans pretend to not know the other three exist. Witches hate vampires, vampires hate witches and they both look down upon daemons.

The day after opening Ashmole 782 Diana meets Matthew Clairmont, a 1500 year old vampire who has been looking for Ashmole 782 for over 100 years. Even though vampires and witches don't mix, Matthew decides to help Diana out by protecting her from all the attention she is getting from the other creatures. It seems that Diana is the only one to see or touch the book since it went missing from the library in the 1850s. Unfortunately when Diana decides to call Ashmole 782 up again it is again listed as missing. Now Diana's life is in danger from the creatures who want to know what kind of magic she possesses that allowed her to call and open the book. Each race believes that the Ashmole 782 holds some secret that is essential to the survival of their race and each race believes that Ashmole 782 belongs to them. Among other things, Matthew is a doctor and has been studying the origins of each race through their DNA. He believes Ashmole 782 holds the key to the origins of each creature. What ensues is a lot of talk about history, alchemy and DNA sequencing. Diana and her magic seem to be the key to discovering the origins of all the creatures. Over the course of the book it becomes clear that Diana needs to embrace her considerable magic because ignoring her power only puts her in more danger. Her relationship with Matthew sets off a sequence of events that could start a war between the creatures and drastic steps must be taken to protect Diana until she can learn to control her power.

Despite bogging down the story with the discussions of history, DNA , alchemy and quoting a few too many ancient texts, Harkness creates an intriguing story that made me want to know what happens next to Matthew and Diana. Do they discover the secrets contained in Ashmole 782? Does Diana learn to control her magic and why is she so important? Do Matthew and Diana succeed in stopping the war between the creatures? There is a lot (and I mean a lot) of background information in this book. It makes sense that there are so many unanswered questions when you remember that there are two more books to come. With the second book out in a few months, I'm glad I waited until now to read book one. If you are a fan of magic, mystery and history, A Discovery of Witches is the book for you.

~ Amy, Adult Services