Book of the Week: Old Time Gardens (from 1901)

The black and white pictures in Old Time Gardens by Alice Morse Earle were the ‘hook’ for me. The Internet Archive has if you are willing to read it online; it’s the way I perused it - primarily for the pictures. There is also a version of the historical book published in 2005 and 'in print' from Amazon

Early on there is a photograph of the gardens at Mount Vernon (George Washington’s home) and I knew I would want to look all the way through. I found myself checking to see if some of the named gardens/locations still existed as gardens. One was a farm that was going through restoration - although the house was mentioned more prominently than the garden.

The other thoughts I have when looking at books of this vintage are historical. The book is a perspective of what the world was like for our great grandparents or great - great grandparents. It is heartening to understand that gardens in 1901 are something that gave joy then and the same types of places today are still pleasurable.

Road Trip Preparation - Reading

I am planning an extended road trip that will involve driving more than half way across the US and back. Along with plotting routes, checking info on the internet, and making hotel reservations, I’m doing some focused reading to prepare myself for the journey. Building up my knowledge about what the natural world holds has always been an interest of mine and a theme for much of my traveling.  Here are the favorite books I’ve collected through the years and am referencing now.

• Roadside Geology Series. This series of books came out in the 1980s and offers geological notes by mile marker along major highways. For the first half of the trip, I’ll be on my own so won’t be able to reference the books while I drive. Still – I’ve perused them enough to observe the geology along the highway crossing the Appalachians then the Mississippi River; skirting the hot springs of Arkansas then onto the relative flatness of a prehistoric seabed in Texas; climbing to the Edwards Plateau passing sand dunes of silicon then gypsum; crossing the Rio Grande rift.  On the way back, I’ll have a sidekick and the person not driving can provide geological commentary as we move along the interstate highway.

• Audubon Field Guides. The one I am looking at the most right now is the Field Guide to the Southwestern State. This well formatted book with lots of illustrations gives information on habitats, flora, invertebrates, and vertebrates. This is not the optimal time of year for botanizing….but whatever there is to see, I’m primed to see it.

• Field Guide to the Birds. The Field Guide to the Birds of Texas and Adjacent States by Roger Tory Peterson is the one I am looking at now. The copy I am referencing is probably over 30 years old --- used frequently in the past and still worth taking.

• The Off the Beaten Path series of books is also on my bookshelf but I’m not referencing them much this time since I am sticking to the interstates to get to my destination as quickly as possible; maybe they’ll be a primary reference when I can spend more time off the main highways.

Have you done this kind of theme reading before a trip? If so – what was your theme and favorite book?

Book of the Week: The Botanical Register (1815-1828)

The 14 volumes of The Botanical Register that Botanicus has scanned and made available online are my featured ‘book’ this week.   The botanical images in The Botanical Register are well worth a look and there are approximately 90 of them in each volume. It is easy to look at just the ‘plates’ using the Pages list on the left side of the page. On the right side of the page is a control panel for zooming in or out and downloading. It is easy to move around the image by simply dragging the view window.  I am gleaning images for my desktop slideshow to play on my second monitor while I write!

Botanicus is a freely accessible, Web-based encyclopedia of digitized historic botanical literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. There is a wealth of material on the site. A short list of some others I’ve enjoyed recently includes:

Orchid Albums from the late 1800s

Journal et flore des jardins

Abbildung und Beschreibung blühender Cacteen

The Botanist's Repository for New and Rare Plants

Rumphia

Historia fisica, politica y natural de la isla de Cuba

Annales de Flore et de Pomone

Book of the Week: The Power of the 2x2 Matrix

I enjoyed being reminded of the 2x2 analysis method in the book The Power of the 2 x 2 Matrix: Using 2 x 2 Thinking to Solve Business Problems and Make Better Decisions  this week. Probably the most famous 2x2 maxtrix from the past 20 years was from Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People  that used importance and urgency to help us analyze our activities in those dimensions. It turns out that the seemingly simple 2x2 is great for analyzing all kinds of things….and that it isn’t necessarily always simple.

The book provides details of a reliable path of pre-work prior to actually using the tool which is good basic problem solving 101:

• Name the problem
• Describe the ideal end state
• Brainstorm the list of what is important…difficult…required
• Cluster the list
• Rank the clusters
• Look at the top 2 or 3 and pick 2 to try for the 2x2 matrix

Once you have designed a 2x2, you can understand pretty quickly if it works to provide perspective and insight to the problem.

So – this is a good book to encourage you to use a pretty intuitive tool once you learn how to perform the pre-work to hone its formulation. This book can help you do that!

Book of the Week: Sweet Revenge by Diane Mott Davidson

Diane Mott Davidson was mentioned in another book I was reading…I was intrigued enough by the concept of murder mysteries with the ‘Sherlock’ being a female caterer (luscious food) and set in Colorado.

The first one I picked up was Dark Tort (Goldy Culinary Mysteries, Book 13) . It was entertaining and I learned how to make homemade croutons (and there is a Journey Cake recipe too).

Now I’m reading Sweet Revenge. I’m already half way through but am wonderfully entertained – again – and am in sync with Goldie’s (the sleuth’s) idea that eating chocolate for breakfast (fudge with peppermint candy chunks!) is a very good way to start the day.