Home & Garden

If you garden, farm, or only dream of doing so, don’t miss this exceptionally entertaining book. Novella Carpenter moved to inner-city Oakland next to a garbage-strewn, abandoned lot, but she still envisioned a flourishing garden and a self-sufficient lifestyle. After she spent countless hours cultivating heirloom tomatoes, watermelons, and squash—not to mention raising chickens, ducks, rabbits, and pigs—Novella realized her dream of an urban garden. I heartily agree with Dominique Browning of The New York Times who says, “[Farm City] is easily the funniest, weirdest, most perversely provocative gardening book I’ve ever read. I couldn’t put it down.” —S.B.

Women are passionate advocates for sustainable food and farming and have been changing the way America eats and farms for decades. Farmer Jane tells 30 stories of some exceptional women leaders (including several in the Bay Area) who are working on this change by farming, educating, advocating, and transforming how we eat through their food businesses. NPR’s Kitchen Sisters say, “Full of passionate, eccentric, off-the-chart kitchen visionaries, these resilient and outrageous women light the path for us to think about who is growing the food we eat and how they tend to the land and their communities.”

In this practical and inspiring book, Charles Smith digs into twenty-six herbs and their uses. Beginning with the growing process, he encourages an understanding of each featured plant, then moves into harvesting and preserving. Armed with the knowledge of how to cultivate herbs at home, any cook with a green thumb can throw this book under her or his arm, reopen it in the kitchen, and add endless flavors to any meal. The contents and beautiful illustrations make this book a great gift as well as a must-have for any Californian who enjoys gardening, cooking, and sustainability. —K.O.

This book puts a new spin on going to work in the garden! Shedworking looks at why having a shed office is a greener way of working, improves work-life balance, and accelerates one’s productivity. Shedworking features images of garden offices and shed-like atmospheres: offices on roofs, sheds inside “traditional” offices, and even sheds on wheels, as well as all-glass shed offices, buildings “built” using living trees, and some famous sheds from around the world (such as fantasy writer Neil Gaiman’s gazebo). Absolutely inspiring.