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Yard and Garden Guides

Compiled by Librarian Paula Behe
Questions are popping up everywhere. What to grow? How to deck out the deck? Pick up one of these Library books and pretty soon those questions will be replaced by plants!

Garden Pools, Fountains & Waterfalls by Scott Atkinson - Wonderful photos back up great design ideas and step-by-step instructions to make this a necessary title for adding a water feature to your backyard.

Step-by-Step Landscaping by Better Homes and Gardens - This complete guide has everything you need to know to transform your yard, including 700 colorful photographs and more than 100 step-by-step projects.

Garden to Vase: Growing and Using Your Own Cut Flowers by Linda Beutler - This title encourages reluctant gardeners to grow and actually use their flowers for one-of-a-kind arrangements.

Containers for Patios by Val Bourne - Some people who love gardening do not have the time or space to enjoy it, so this book helps them transform a small space into something worth their time and effort.

Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver by Fern Marshall Bradley - This is an extensive collection of purely organic gardening advice. Attractive drawings help illustrate both problems and solutions.

Planting a Small Garden by Phil Clayton - Small-garden owners want guaranteed success. This latest title includes tips and techniques to help them achieve it and enjoy gardening at the same time.

A Pattern Garden: The Essential Elements of Garden Making by Valerie Easton - Beautiful photography helps illustrate the author’s belief that gardens designed in patterns can be inviting and satisfying. The guide helps you create your own dream space to fit your outdoor life.

Country Living Easy Transformations: Makeovers for Your Outdoor Spaces: Backyards, Decks, Patios, Porches & Terraces by Elizabeth Hamilton - This book contains makeover plans for your yard that really are easy. Colorful photographs also help readers obtain many ideas for decorating their yards and porches.

John Deere Landscaping & Lawn Care: The Complete Guide to a Beautiful Yard Year-Round by Kristen Hampshire - This practical book gives homeowners everything they need to know to create a comfortable and attractive outdoor living space, including inspiring weekend projects and answers to common questions.

The Elements of Organic Gardening by HRH The Prince of Wales and Stephanie Donaldson. Prince Charles, an avid believer of organic gardening, gives his techniques for maintaining healthy soil and offers other tips that can be adapted to almost any garden, large or small.

The Organic Lawn Care Manual by Paul Tukey - This title offers methods for safe lawn care without chemicals. Whether growing a lawn from scratch or dealing with pests and diseases, this book gives step-by-step guidance to get your lawn “off drugs.”

 
Enrich Your Game

Compiled by Librarian Paula Behe
Whether you’re into the diamond or the green, spring is rich with sports action. So, baseball and golf fans, read the following books and make a few grand-slam and hole-in-one deposits into your game!

BASEBALL

Ballparks Then and Now by Eric Enders - In this unique, city-by-city tour, archival images are paired with modern photos of baseball’s most beloved landmarks to show the many changing faces of the ballparks.

Ballpark Vacations: Great Family Trips to Minor League and Classic Major League Ballparks Across America by Margaret Engel and Bruce Adams - Check out some of the best places to see America’s national pastime in action. The book covers how to get foul balls, collect autographs, where to sit and more, and also includes a directory for every minor and major league park in the country.

Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan’s Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks by Zack Hample - This book includes an extensive glossary of baseball slang, information on the amateur draft, as well as fascinating trivia and superstitions to get everyone in the right frame of mind for ball season.

The Ultimate Baseball Road-Trip: A Fan’s Guide to Major League Stadiums by Josh Pahigian and Kevin O’Connell - Here is a comprehensive guide to all the different ballparks throughout the country in a lively narrative loaded with folklore, statistics and trivia.

The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America by Joe Posnanski - As the first black man to coach in the major league, Buck O’Neil put up with racial discrimination throughout his career. But, instead of becoming bitter to circumstances, O’Neil continued to love baseball and became a tireless spokesman for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo..

Baseball Gold: Mining Nuggets From Our National Pastime by Dan Schlossberg - This takes you on a tour of baseball’s unusual history and gives many quirky facts about our national pastime.

Dropping the Ball: Baseball’s Troubles and How We Can and Must Solve Them by Dave Winfield - Winfield presents his plan of action for saving baseball from self-destruction, telling us what threatens the very foundation of our national pastime.

GOLF

The Michelle Wie Way: Inside Michelle Wie’s Power-Swing Technique by John Andrisani - The five keys to mastering Michelle Wie’s powerful swing are demonstrated in detailed, step-by-step photographs.

Golf Magazine Private Lessons: The Best of the Best Instruction by David Dusek - Tips previously shown in GOLF Magazine are brought together in this book along with 750 full-color illustrations.

Tales From Q School: Inside Golf’s Fifth Major by John Feinstein - The PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, or Q School, is a grueling and heartbreaking competition. More than 1,000 people are whittled down to 30 qualifiers. As players share experiences, this book helps readers get into the heads of all the competitors.

The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever by Mark Frost - Two millionaires made an off-the-cuff bet that set up a climatic duel between two pros and two top amateurs, changing golf forever. From this game on, golf transitioned from a game for the rich to a suburban obsession.

 
Reading and Beading

Compiled by Librarian Paula Behe
Beads plus books equals beauty. If you’ve got the beads, we’ve got the books— books that will help you turn those beads into beautiful jewelry and accents for your accessories. And, just so you don’t think we’re stringing you along, here’s a sampling of some of those books.

Fashion Beading by Kim Ballor - The 50-plus projects in this title go way beyond the usual. Real creativity, good directions and color photographs help beaders make smart and stylish pieces that are fun to wear and amazingly simple to make.

The Passionate Beader’s Guide by Bead Unique Magazine - This is the essential beading book if you are teaching yourself. Basic techniques and tools are shown. Thirty-five fresh projects with step-by-step instructions are demonstrated for the beginner or the experienced beader.

Create Your Own Bling: Add Glamour to Your Favorite Accessories by Ilene Branowitz - More than 150 color photos demonstrate how to create glitzy items from readily available and inexpensive materials. Handbags, sunglasses, and cell phone and MP3 cases are transformed to resemble new, fashion-forward looks with lots of BLING!

Beadwork Creates Jewelry: 40 Beaded Designs by Jean Campbell - A variety of jewelry from top-notch bead designers is artfully displayed in this title. This book provides inspiration for creating dozens of beautiful beaded jewelry projects.

Stringing Style 2: 50 More Designs for Beaded Jewelry by Jean Campbell - More than 50 designs are demonstrated in this title. Tricks of the trade and insider design tips as well as photographs, illustrations and instructions help beaders of all skill levels with these designs.

Beading With Crystals: Beautiful Jewelry, Simple Techniques by Katherine Duncan Aimone - Glass crystal beads are now the jewelry maker’s material of choice. The sparkling projects in this title range from simple to complex. Detailed instructions make the process of creating these pieces both easy and successful for beginners.

Bead Tempted: Over 100 Irresistible Ideas and Inspirations for Creative Jewelry Design by Vigdis Mo Johansen - This book features beautiful jewelry designs for rings, bracelets, earrings and necklaces.

The Aspiring Artist’s Studio: Beaded Jewelry by Tair Parnes - The 20 projects in this book show the simplest techniques to more complex ones.

Make It in Minutes: Beaded Jewelry by Wendy Remmers - Every level of bead-happy crafters will like this title. It thoroughly explains how to make boutique-worthy jewelry and gives advice on choosing bead combinations.

Metal Clay: The Complete Guide: Innovative Techniques to Inspire Any Artist by Jackie Truty - This guide to metal jewelry gives step-by-step instructions and basic information about materials and processes you can use as a beginner or as an advanced metal-clay artist. Blending clay with various mediums is also demonstrated.

Black History Month

Compiled by Librarian Madeline Dunchak

Entertainment. War. Journalism. Politics. The books below highlight just some of the successful, black women and men in these arenas, from the early 1900s into this century. While the list was created in honor of Black History Month, you can extend that honor beyond February by reading about the lives of these and other black leaders and discovering their positive impact on your own world.

Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image by Bennetta Jules-Rosette - The author presents a critical study of Josephine Baker’s public and private life. This revolutionary performer, movie star, fashion idol and humanitarian was a woman way ahead of her time. Baker devoted most of her life to promoting a multicultural worldview.

Blue Skies, Black Wings: African American Pioneers of Aviation by Samuel L. Broadnax - This book recounts the history of African Americans involved in aviation. Broadnax gives a firsthand account of the famed Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. He vividly recounts the struggle to desegregate the military and the hardships suffered by the airmen who wanted to serve their country.

Coltrane: The Story of a Sound by Ben Ratliff - In the first part of this book, acclaimed jazz writer Ratliff tells the story of Coltrane’s development as a musician. He starts with Coltrane’s first recordings as an unknown and ends with his final records and fame. The book’s second half traces Coltrane’s legacy and influence on jazz music.

Les Brownlee: The Autobiography of a Pioneering African-American Journalist by Les Brownlee - Brownlee begins the book by telling us about his early childhood, which involved growing up in a single-parent home in segregated Chicago. He also recounts his struggle to become a news reporter. Through it all, Brownlee remained determined to succeed in breaking down racial barriers.

Mandela: A Critical Life by Tom Lodge - Drawing on an extensive range of original sources, this biography presents a fresh insight into the shaping of Nelson Mandela’s personal and public image. It shows how Mandela’s fight for equality in his country brought him to world prominence.

Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell by Karen DeYoung - Washington Post journalist DeYoung offers a riveting account of Powell’s journey from the son of Jamaican immigrants to one of the most influential and revered soldiers and statesmen of our time. Colin Powell has become a strong leader and national hero.

Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and her Path to Power by Marcus Mabry - This biography reveals the private side of one of the most powerful women in recent history. It describes the fascinating story of Rice’s life, from her childhood in segregated Alabama to the present. How will historians judge her role in Iraq? What does her future hold after the Bush administration?

Diana Ross: An Unauthorized Biography by J. Randy Taraborrelli - This is an extraordinary account of a music legend and often controversial figure. Ross is regarded as a civil rights trailblazer, a fiery celebrity, a devoted mother and an accomplished entertainer. This fascinating page-turner is a tribute to a woman who has persevered and flourished for more than four decades.

 
Healthy Foods For Healthy Families

Compiled by Librarian Paula Behe

“Blech! I don’t like green beans! I can’t eat anymore.” If you have kids, you’ve heard this. But getting good food into your child is just a book away! Check out one of these tasty titles for healthier – and more peaceful – mealtimes.

The Family Dinner Fix: Cooking for the Rushed by Sandi Richard - Provides 10 weeks of balanced, healthy recipes and meal plans that include helpful grocery lists for busy families.

Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food by Jessica Seinfeld - Traditional recipes are stealthily packed with veggies and are so appetizing that kids don’t even know! A month’s worth of meals for kids of all ages also shows how portion size is important. The recipes are creative, practical and easy to read!

Semi-Homemade Cool Kids Cooking by Sandra Lee - Kids can learn to have fun in the kitchen with this cookbook. Lively illustrations help them succeed at cooking.

Cooking Healthy with the Kids in Mind by JoAnna Lund - Features more than 200 easy-to-prepare recipes that are also good for you. Offers advice on nutrition for kids, family fitness and helping kids make healthy choices away from home.

Cooking Rocks! Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals for Kids by Rachael Ray - A fabulous collection of age-specific recipes with a high cool factor are demonstrated in this fun-filled book.

Southern Living Busy Moms Weeknight Favorites by Editors of Southern Living - This cookbook puts the emphasis on fast, family-friendly and wholesome meals. Simple yet delicious main-course recipes with easy-to-make side dishes are shown in the mouth-watering photographs. The recipes in this book are easy and kid friendly!

The Healthy Lunchbox by Marie McClendon - Dozens of easy menus and tips help you give your children healthy lunch-on-the-go alternatives to the usual lunchbox fare.

Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children by Ann Cooper and Lisa M. Holmes - Easy-to-follow solutions to help ease the chore of packing a lunch for your child. She helps you avoid trans-fats and processed foods, which hinder your child’s ability to concentrate.

Top 100 Baby Purees: 100 Quick and Easy Meals for a Healthy and Happy Baby by Annabel Karmel - How you feed your newborn will be one of the most important decisions you make for your new baby. This book assures that your child will only consume the freshest, top-quality ingredients, a method that is also more economical.

Superfoods: For Babies and Children by Annabel Karmel - This author helps you make baby and child fare even healthier by adding more of the brightly colored, antioxidant-rich, disease-fighting fruits and vegetables they call superfoods to everything you cook.

Just Two More Bites!: Helping Picky Eaters Say Yes to Food by Linda Piette - A helpful guide for parents whose young children are picky eaters. Includes nutritionally balanced recipes that appeal to children’s tastes.

Working Mom’s Fast & Easy Family Cookbook by Elise Griffith & Jeanne Besser - Features nearly 300 delicious, kid-approved meals that can be on the table in less than 30 minutes.

 
Holiday Crafts, Décor and Food

Compiled by Librarian Paula Behe
Whether you’re setting the table or setting the mood, these books about holiday crafts, décor and food will guarantee a festive time for family and visitors.


300 Ways to Make the Best Christmas Ever!
Decorations, Carols, Crafts & Recipes for Every Kind of Christmas Tradition! by Kristen Birkeland. More than 500 inspirational ideas - from decorating to cooking - to make your Christmas merry.

American Christmas by Judith Dern. Eight regions are represented in this Williams-Sonoma title that features more than 60 holiday recipes, easy table settings, lovely centerpieces and easy-to-make gifts.

Christmas Decorating by Carolyn Bell. Make wreaths, stockings, candles and tree decorations to extend Christmas cheer throughout your home.

Christmas Style by Debi Staron and Bob Pranga. An extravagant coffee-table book with some over-the-top design themes that will inspire many conversations as your guests browse its pages.

Crafting Christmas Gifts: 25 Adorable Projects Featuring Angels, Snowmen, Reindeer and Other Yuletide Favourites by Tone Finnanger. Easy-to-follow instructions help you complete these hand-sewn yuletide favorites.

Decorating for Christmas by Kasey Rogers and Mark Wood. Step-by-step instructions to help you create these elegant Christmas projects to spruce up your home.

Gooseberry Patch Christmas: Merry Ideas, Recipes & How-To’s for the Happiest of Holidays! Delicious recipes, handmade gift ideas and many entertaining ideas.

Making Gingerbread Houses: Dozens of Delectable Designs & Ideas by Veronika Gunter. These delightful gingerbread houses look elaborate, but each one is simple enough for a beginner to make.

Pillsbury Family Christmas Cookbook: Celebrate the Season with More Than 150 Recipes, Plus Fun Craft Ideas Full-color photographs help display this new collection of recipes, activities and kid-pleasing crafts from Pillsbury Company.

The Ultimate Christmas by Reader’s Digest Editors. There are instructions for one-of-a-kind gifts and handcrafted decorations - from wreaths to centerpieces - with more than 115 recipes.

Vintage Christmas Crafts by Sara Toliver. Directions for projects, ideas for decorating, and enticing pictures help you decorate in the Victorian Vintage, Shabby Chic, Country or Personal Vintage styles.

Williams-Sonoma Entertaining: Christmas Entertaining by Georgeanne Brennan. Color photographs and detailed work plans help you host holiday get-togethers with confidence and style.

The Hanukkah Book by Mae Shafter Rockland. From a recounting of the story of the Maccabees to crafts and recipes, this title gives hundreds of suggestions to enhance the meaning of Hanukkah.

Kwanzaa Crafts: Gifts & Decorations for a Meaningful & Festive Celebration by Marcia Odle McNair. This book contains stories, recipes and craft ideas to fill the seven days of Kwanzaa with joy and remembrance.

 
If You Like...
Compiled by Mona Pocatko, Librarian and Supervisor of Special Delivery

So, you’ve read every single book your favorite author has ever written, and you still can’t get enough? While you’re waiting for the writer’s next best seller, or hoping they gain a supernatural writing ability to keep up with your reading pace, let this list help you pick out a book similar in style to works by top authors. These titles are available in both regular and large print.

If you like John Grisham (Legal Suspense), then try...
• Michael Connelly
• Linda Fairstein
• Brian Haig
• John Lescroart
• Brad Meltzer
• Perri O’Shaughnessy
• Barbara Parker
• Lisa Scottoline
• Robert K. Tannenbaum

If you like Nora Roberts (Romantic Suspense), then try...
• Cherry Adair
• Susan Andersen
• Suzanne Brockmann
• Barbara Freethy
• Heather Graham
• Lisa Jackson
• Rachel Lee
• Lindsey McKenna
• Carla Neggers
• JoAnn Ross
• Sharon Sala

If you like James Patterson (Suspense), then try...
• Steven J. Cannell
• Harlan Coben
• Jeffrey Deaver
• Tess Gerritsen
• Greg Iles
• Ridley Pearson
• Thomas Perry
• John Sandford
• Stephen White
• Stuart Woods

If you like Louis L’Amour (Westerns), then try...
• Max Brand
• T.T. Flynn
• Norman A. Fox
• Ray Hogan
• William W. Johnstone
• T.V. Olsen
• Stephen Overholser
• Lauran Paine
• Les Savage, Jr.
• Luke Short

If you like Jan Karon (Inspirational Contemporary Fiction/ Romance), then try...
• Jennifer Chiaverini
• Robin Jones Gunn
• Lynne Hinton
• Karen Kingsbury
• Annette Smith
• Debra White Smith
• Adrianna Trigiani
• Stephanie Grace Whitson

If you like Danielle Steele (Contemporary Romance), then try...
• Jill Barnett
• Jennifer Crusie
• Jill Marie Landis
• Debbie Macomber
• Kasey Michaels
• Carly Phillips
• Patricia Rice
• Barbara Samuel
• Susan Wiggs
• Susan Wilson
• Lisa Wingate

If you like David Baldacci (International Intrigue), then try...
• Dale Brown
• Lee Child
• Nelson DeMille
• Vince Flynn
• Stephen Frey
• W.E.B. Griffin
• Stephen Hunter
• Kyle Mills
• John J. Nance
• Daniel Silva

If you like Lori Wick (Inspirational Historical Romance), then try...
• Roseanne Bittner
• Stephen Bly
• Al & Joanna Lacy
• Kathleen Morgan
• Jane Peart
• Judith Pella
• Tracie Peterson
• Colleen Reece
• Lauraine Snelling
• Ester Loewen Vogt

If you like Stephanie Laurens (Historical Romance), then try...
• Victoria Alexander
• Mary Balogh
• Jo Beverley
• Elaine Coffman
• Suzanne Enoch
• Jane Feather
• Eloisa James
• Sabrina Jeffries
• Kat Martin
• Connie Mason
• Linda Lael Miller
• Julia Quinn
• Jodi Thomas

 

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