A Garden of Marvels
by Ruth Kassinger (Morrow, $26)
“Forget Fifty Shades of Grey,” said Billy Heller in the New York Post. In a book whose subtitle promises insights into “how we discovered that flowers have sex,” Ruth Kassinger has mixed in more than a few passages “that would make Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele blush.” But the procreation talk serves a purpose in Kassinger’s “informative and entertaining” blend of gardening memoir and history of botany. The author even uses her new insights to cultivate a multifruit “cocktail” tree.
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Mister Owita’s Guide to Gardening
by Carol Wall (Amy Einhorn, $26)
“No green thumb is required to enjoy the warmhearted pleasures of Carol Wall’s moving memoir,” said Patty Rhule in USA Today. Its story begins when the author hires a Kenyan immigrant to tend her garden in Virginia and makes the mortifying mistake of assuming he’s uneducated. Giles Owita turns out to be not just a “gracious, generous” man but a Ph.D. in horticulture. As Wall’s garden blossoms, so does a “transformative” friendship.
The Soil Will Save Us
by Kristin Ohlson (Rodale, $24)
Kristin Ohlson’s “breathless but important” new book sheds light on a surprising potential remedy to global warming, said Dean Kuipers in the Los Angeles Times. Some farmers and scientists now believe that rising temperatures can be reversed by improving farming and forestry techniques so that the soil is used as a carbon bank. Ohlson, who’s a journalist, is “a little too gobsmaked by the science,” but her book is “a fast-paced and entertaining shot across the bow of mainstream thinking.”
The Gardener of Versailles
by Alain Baraton (Rizzoli, $27)
“For sheer fun,” this book by the Palace of Versailles’s chief gardener is hard to beat, said Jonathan Lopez in The Wall Street Journal. Alain Baraton, who’s lived and worked on the palace grounds for nearly 40 years, proves delightful when describing his daily routines, which include humoring eccentric regular visitors and talking to trees that he’s given nicknames. Though Baraton gets some of the palace’s history wrong, it’s hard not to fall for his easy Gallic charm.
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What do heatwaves mean for Scandinavia?Under the Radar A record-breaking run of sweltering days and tropical nights is changing the way people – and animals – live in typically cool Nordic countries
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August 17 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include voting rights of felons, misdirection on the way to the Alaska summit, and more
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5 crime-ridden cartoons about National Guard deployment in DCCartoons Artists take on the crime of littering, the real criminals in DC, and more
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”