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Seed Starter
	"My seedlings are off to their best start ever this year, growing like wildfire," says Book Stacks' Gift Goddess. "And it's all thanks to Maureen Heffernan's wonderful book Seed Starter: A Growing Guide for Starting Flower, Vegetable, and Herb Seeds Indoors and Outdoors. Heffernan, who is the director of public programs at the Cleveland Botanical Garden (right here in Book Stacks' home town), has written an indispensable reference for learning the basics of starting flowers, vegetables, and herbs. This useful book includes a detailed encyclopedia which profiles 300 annuals, perennials, vegetables, and herbs, listing all their basic growing needs; special tips on purchasing seeds and the different equipment available to help the home gardener; plans for building your own light table; extensive appendices listing average first and last frost dates for many North American areas; and more than 140 full-color photographs and vintage illustrations, as well as 50 informative line drawings. Every day, I tote this reference book down to my basement, which is filled with little peat pots, grow lights, seed propagation heating mats -- and happy little seedlings. My little growing green friends are expressive testament to the excellence of this comprehensive guide." (Get the Book!)
Bloom & Blossom
	As more and more Americans are abandoning their supermarket ways, gardening as a hobby is growing by leaps and bounds. Maybe it's the lure of well-stocked root cellars, larders, and pantries filled with the fruits and vegetables of your labor ... where rows of canned veggies vie for space with colorful jars of jam amp; jelly and baskets of dried corn lie alongside buckets of tubers -- potatoes, turnips, parsnips -- while a variety of herbs hang gracefully from the ceiling and walls. Whatever the motivation, Mary Swander's Bloom & Blossom covers them all. Juxtaposing excerpts from the writing of early American settlers with that of nineteenth century classics along with surprising contributions by many prominent twentieth century writers, she explores the pleasure and nostalgia associated with one of our most enduring passions. In a collection of garden writing as fresh and vital as the subject matter it explores, Bloom & Blossom also investigates the emotional, social, and ecological implications behind our passion for nurturing the fruits of the earth. (Get the Book!)
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English
	We're very fond of this little gem: you have to love a grammar book flippant enough to title one of its chapters "The Comma Sutra." Patricia O`Conner, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, recognizes that most students don`t know a gerund from a gerbil (and don`t care), but also knows that students would like to speak and write as though they did. O'Conner has written a survival guide for students and other people who want a clear, simple, elegant introduction to good usage. Charming, amusing, sensible, modern, this book is a gift of clarity and good humor, ideal for language fans and phobes everywhere. Whatever the particular grammatical boo-boo, Woe Is I can fix it without hitting the reader over the head with a lot of technical jargon -- and is also filled with easy tips on good writing. As the dust jacket says, "Woe Is I: No heavy lifting, no assembly required." What more could a graduate want? (For a preview, you may listen to a Book Stacks interview with O'Conner and hear her talk about ways people can become better writers and speakers -- and the grammar mistakes that drive her crazy.) (Get the Book!)

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