Book Reviews

Sometimes you need a good book to get started gardening, keeping turtles, or engaging in backyard birding. Here are some good books that I recommend. Click on either the book covers or the titles to go to my full reviews.

Attracting Birds to Your Backyard. Get this for the beginning backyard birder.  This is a comprehensive guide to birds, their interaction with each other, and your interaction with them.

The recipient of this gift will page through this book for years to come so it’s a good thing it has heavyweight pages and a rugged construction. It will probably become your friend’s or relative’s favorite birding book. 

Projects for the Birder’s Garden. Get this for the journeyman who knows something about identifying wild birds, but who would like some useful projects of different skill levels to draw him or her further into maximizing the creative potential of his or her backyard.  This book offers projects for cooks, woodworkers, gardeners, kids, and even complete klutzes.  In addition, it also has the heavyweight construction you’d hope for in a how-to book.  Its glossy pages and illustrations are beautiful enough to make this a cherished gift.

Create a Mediterranean Garden. This lavish hardback stuffed with full-color photographs can aid the recipient in constructing that most practical and beautiful of gardens:  the water-wise Mediterranean garden.  Such a garden will delight desert-dwellers, herbalists, beginning gardeners, and busy gardeners who don’t have time to coddle their plants.  Some of the oldest cultivated plants in the world from Biblical times make up the typical Mediterranean garden: the fig tree, the olive tree, and the classical herbs such as rosemary, thyme, and lavender.

Herbs a Garden Workbook. Get this for the true convert to water-wise gardening (or the busy gardener who doesn’t have time to coddle delicate plants). This small book is stuffed with clever landscaping projects for people who love herbs.  You’ll learn how to make a culinary circle-garden that displays the herbs of three different contents. You’ll cultivate a fragrant chamomile “lawn-seat.” You’ll even be able to tackle a chessboard-planted garden of herbal groundcovers or a classic medieval knot-garden!