Science & Technology

-- Library Journal, 04/15/2010

Albrecht Howard, Love. So You Want To Be a Garden Designer: How To Get Started, Grow, and Thrive in the Landscape Design Business. Timber. Apr. 2010. 424p. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 978-0-88192-904-1. $29.95. GARDENING

Inspiring and practical in equal measure, this exceptional handbook offers sage advice on embarking on a career in garden design. As Albrecht Howard, who has owned her own landscape and garden design business since 1994, guides readers through the steps involved in translating a love of plants and gardening into a viable business, her enthusiasm for her profession is contagious. Blending personal experience and sensible recommendations in an engaging and authentic voice, Albrecht Howard strikes a credible balance between prudence and encouragement in chapters covering every phase of garden design, including plants, paths, water features, lighting, decks, and stone walls. She also covers working with suppliers and subcontractors, dealing with clients, managing the design process, and running a small business. The book is nicely illustrated with photographs and diagrams and includes lists of resources and further reading. VERDICT Highly recommended for anyone contemplating a career in garden design and for those who would like to simply daydream about one.—Donna L. Davey, New York Univ. Lib.

Wilson (No One Gardens Alone: A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence) has written about North Carolina gardener and garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence (1904–85) for more than a decade. She provides a fair assessment of this book by describing it as a creation "for readers who enjoy letters, rather than a text for scholars." Found here are letters spanning 1934–66 that Lawrence wrote to her older friend and mentor, the playwright Ann Preston Bridgers. They provide a window into Lawrence's daily activities and contemplations on various topics while revealing the significance of the women's relationship. The conversation is not evenly represented, but this is not Wilson's fault. Although a few letters authored by Bridgers are included, most of the letters she wrote to Lawrence have not been found. VERDICT This book will have regional appeal in the southern United States, with the potential to especially attract readers in North Carolina. It is also a worthy acquisition for libraries with well-used gardening collections, since gardeners are most likely to recognize Lawrence's name.—Stacy Russo, Chapman Univ. Libs., Orange, CA

In recent years, there has been much research on how to live longer with fewer health problems. Mark Liponis's Ultralongevity, Richard Flanigan and Kate Flanigan Sawyer's Longevity Made Simple, and Sanjay Gupta's Chasing Life all explore this research. Now Butler, president of the International Longevity Center USA and a Pulitzer Prize winner for Why Survive?: Being Old in America, enters the fold with a book that, like its predecessors, emphasizes a diet rich in whole grains, fruits, and leafy green vegetables, as well as a lifestyle featuring regular exercise, sufficient sleep, reduced stress, and regular social interaction, preferably charitable. VERDICT There's nothing here that can't be found elsewhere, but Butler's name will carry weight with many readers. Libraries should buy this if they don't have any of the other titles. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/10.]—Susan B. Hagloch, Tuscarawas Cty. P.L., New Philadelphia, OH

Ogle, a registered dietician, exercise physiologist, and ACE-certified personal trainer, and Mazzullo, an OB-GYN, wrote the first edition of this book in 2002. Here, they present the latest information and research to help couples prepare their bodies, minds, and bank accounts for the arrival of a child. The authors begin with chapters that help couples examine their stress levels, lifestyle habits, and home and work environments. They move on to how to choose a doctor or midwife, medical conditions affecting conception, genetic factors, chronic health conditions, and things that men can do to assure conception. Good nutrition, exercise, and the right drugs and supplements are vital for both partners, the authors hold. There is also coverage of infertility issues. Appendixes offer income and expense worksheets, dietary reference intake charts, charts for tracking menstrual cycles, and resources for safety information. VERDICT An outstanding book that fills a gap in public and consumer health library collections. There are many books on pregnancy and infertility, but none addresses preparation for conception in depth as this one does.—Barbara M. Bibel, Oakland P.L., CA

Olson (Lehigh Univ.; The Political Economy of Aging) brings her expertise in social welfare policy to bear in this careful but trenchant critique of Medicaid, America's program to provide medical services to Americans who are severely economically disadvantaged. Olson traces Medicaid's history, showing how the program's scope, funding, and aims change with the political winds blowing in Washington and clearly reflecting how various political camps attempt to put their ideological stamp on this medical safety net. The book also shows the ways that the medical lobbies have shaped benefit programs over time to their interests. Olson is clear that she believes the only way to grant equality is to have a single-payer system, a conclusion carefully grounded in her historical analysis. VERDICT Revealing the long history of current debates over the government's role in health care, this book will be essential reading for serious students of political science and health politics.—Aaron Klink, Duke Univ., Durham, NC

Internist and infectious disease specialist Weiss here shares his plan for developing a personalized prescription for getting and staying physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy. After sharing an example of a patient who becomes a victim to the shortfalls of traditional medicine by not taking personal responsibility for his own health, the author points out that often our egos get in the way of our own health. Patients, he argues, must first admit that the path they are on is wrong and then take responsibility to change their own behavior. Weiss concludes with a chapter putting his advice into action, showing patients how they can practically apply the wellness prescription to their own health. Also provided is a short list of web and print resources. VERDICT Short chapters and short paragraphs make his book easy to read and to follow. While Weiss does not offer any real new advice and tends to overuse exclamation points, many time-pressed and info-overloaded readers will appreciate his succinct delivery.—Dana Ladd, Community Health Education Ctr., Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Libs. & Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Health Syst., Richmond

Opening with a story about his attempt to take sourdough on an airplane, Alexander (The $64 Tomato) recounts his challenge to make peasant bread every week for a year until he baked the perfect loaf. Bakers will delight in his often humorous mission as he relates leaving out salt, growing his own wheat, discovering parchment paper, and splashing water into the oven in an effort to create steam, "[that] miracle vapor that's indispensable in bread making from start to finish!" Alexander also writes about attending a kneading conference in Maine, spending time in a French monastery, and going to Morocco. During the first week of his quest, the bread books on his shelf weighed two pounds; by week 47, he owned 64 pounds of books. As he sums up, "Bread is life." He includes some recipes and "A Baker's Bookshelf," a list of the books on bread he acquired. VERDICT This humorous memoir is recommended for anyone who has ever tried to bake a loaf.—Nicole Mitchell, Birmingham, AL

To tell the story of the forgotten and almost lost Norton grape, which was developed in the experimental garden of Dr. Daniel Norton in Virginia long before California's wine-producing reign, Kliman (food & wine editor, The Washingtonian) takes the reader on a colorful romp from its creation in the 1800s through Prohibition to the present-day efforts of vintner Jenni McCloud. Kliman's easy and friendly writing style makes the book highly accessible. He went to McCloud's vineyard, and his first-person accounts and impressions make the history feel close and real. Kliman clearly did a great deal of research; however, he does not include foot- or endnotes, and this omission is likely to be frustrating for historians. VERDICT While not a scholarly history, this is an engaging book on an untapped area of American history and an appealing account of current efforts to make wine with the Norton.—Lisa A. Ennis, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib.

Beresford-Kroeger (Arboretum America) has concocted a strange brew: a collection of 40 essays, each no more than three pages, that explore the medicinal, ecological, nutritional, and mythic properties of trees. The author—a botanist, medical and agricultural researcher, and self-described "renegade scientist"—considers the invisible life of the forest and shows the myriad connections among humanity, forest, and everything else. She provides fascinating accounts of the micro processes of trees and makes intriguing arguments for using these "chemical factories" to healthy advantage. But her eclectic approach of moving to and fro between "hard" plant science and the "soft" tree lore finds curious expression in a language at times exact and other times murky. Also, the title is somewhat misleading because the emphasis is clearly on North American silva, and only a few species are discussed in depth. VERDICT At its best, this work resonates like lyric poetry; at its worst, it devolves into New Age twaddle. Beresford-Kroeger's work is sui generis; readers looking for tree lore might try Diana Wells's Lives of the Trees and for a global, more scientific treatment, Colin Tudge's The Tree.—Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.

Expanding on his provocative Atlantic Monthly article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?," technology writer Carr (The Big Switch) provides a deep, enlightening examination of how the Internet influences the brain and its neural pathways. Computers have altered the way we work; how we organize information, share news and stories, and communicate; and how we search for, read, and absorb information. Carr's analysis incorporates a wealth of neuroscience and other research, as well as philosophy, science, history, and cultural developments. He investigates how the media and tools we use (including libraries) shape the development of our thinking and considers how we relate to and think about our brains. Carr also examines the impact of online searching on memory and explores the overall impact that the tools and media we use have on memory formation. His fantastic investigation of the effect of the Internet on our neurological selves concludes with a very humanistic petition for balancing our human and computer interactions. VERDICT Neuroscience and technology buffs, librarians, and Internet users will find this truly compelling. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/10; seven-city tour.]—Candice Kail, Columbia Univ. Libs., New York

Rarely can a work of popular science be read at so many levels—even the title contains a double entendre. The problem of why altruism exists among self-interested individuals competing against each other according to natural selection is among the most complex of Darwinian theory. Harman (The Man Who Invented the Chromosome: A Life of Cyril Darlington) reveals George Price as a scientific outsider who nonetheless discovered the mathematical formula that described both individual and group covariance. Although he worked on some of the major scientific undertakings of his day, his youthful ego and bravado kept him on the fringes. Later in life, after a profound religious conversion, he dedicated his life to altruism in a different way—by tending to the homeless and downtrodden. His tragic suicide was, perhaps, the price of his pursuit. VERDICT A masterfully told story that edifies while it engages, this book is in the same class as Sylvia Nasar's A Beautiful Mind and could be as popular. Readers who enjoy this may also be interested in The Compassionate Instinct, edited by Dacher Keltner and others.—Gregg Sapp, Evergreen State Coll., Olympia, WA

Artists' work is their legacy to society—seldom do they provide us notes on their life and thoughts as they are in the process of living and creating. Luckily, Leonardo jotted down thousands of pages of ideas, sketches, thoughts, and more. Roughly half of this prodigious output exists today, though fragmented, in museums and private collections, and occasionally new pages surface. In this book, originally published in Germany in 2008, Klein (The Science of Happiness) masterfully connects Leonardo's tangible work (for example, paintings) to his ideas in his notebooks within the political and economic world where he functioned. What is most amazing is Klein's ability to show readers how Leonardo's powers of observation could make up for his lack of mathematical knowledge or engineering training. Equally incredible are Leonardo's drawings of the human body—so insightful that they still provide us with information today. VERDICT In short, Klein successfully enters Leonardo's mind through his notebooks and includes readers along the way. Highly recommended and required reading for history of science scholars and enthusiasts.—Michael D. Cramer, Schwarz BioSciences, RTP, NC

In this extensively documented title, a biologist distills the varied lifestyles of selected wild bird species worldwide from technical scientific journal writings and her own broad experience. Her ten engaging chapters touch on such topics as females who cheat, what makes males attractive, divorce, parenting strategies, migration demands, how birds change their habits, territorial defense, aggression, killing of siblings, the functions of song, and much more. Stutchbury (biology, York Univ., Toronto; Silence of the Songbirds) has conducted field research in Pennsylvania, Panama, North Dakota, Iowa, and many other areas. She also draws heavily on others' published findings, but her entertaining anecdotes leaven the academic context of the studies she describes. VERDICT This is an excellent overview of wild bird behavior, social relationships, courtship, and breeding, which are surprisingly structured and complex. Well researched, this is highly recommended for academic and large public libraries, natural history and psychology collections, and readers with more than a superficial attraction to nature.—Henry T. Armistead, formerly with Free Lib. of Philadelphia

Despite a lack of formal scientific credentials, Whitty (The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific) proves to be a keen observer of the natural world in this lyrical account of her adventures as a "sea tramp," a documentary filmmaker, and a freelance naturalist. Studying gulls, peregrine falcons, storm petrels, sea lions, and whales in locations ranging from Isla Rasa off of Baja California to Newfoundland to the Galápagos, she points out the complex ecological relationships in various climates and environments. Whitty conveys her dismay at the effects of climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and the fragility of many life forms; interweaves legends from Hindu writings, Greek mythology, and Icelandic sagas into topics such as animal life cycles, Gulf Stream circulation, the Labrador current, and Atlantic bottom water; and touches upon the effects of organic pollutants on the marine environment and of human activities on ocean temperature and salinity. VERDICT Lovers of both terrestrial and marine nature and readers who enjoyed Alexandra Morton's Listening to Whales and Trevor Norton's Underwater To Get Out of the Rain will be inspired to use their powers of observation to appreciate the natural environment.—Judith B. Barnett, Univ. of Rhode Island Lib., Kingston

Agriculture