book reviews
Nick Neely walked from San Diego to San Francisco, retracing the route of the expedition led by Captain Portolá in 1769, which marked the first assessment of the state’s vast agricultural potential. Alta California recounts Neely’s 12-week journey, serving at once as memoir, history lesson, critical examination and love letter to the Golden State. Hardcover from Counterpoint Press. $26.
Edible Gardens LA founder Lauri Kranz has helped chefs, celebrities and other well-known clients grow organic vegetable gardens and edible landscapes that are both productive and aesthetically pleasing. In A Garden Can Be Anywhere: Creating Bountiful and Beautiful Edible Gardens , written with husband Dean Kuipers, the self-taught gardening expert offers inspiration and step-by-step advice for planning, planting, growing and maintaining edible outdoor spaces, no matter the setting or plot size. (See story on Page 6.) Hardcover from Abrams. $40.
A strawberry that talks. A drop of water taking a
fantastic voyage. A confused sheep. These are just some of the characters populating tales in the 2020 edition of Imagine this... Stories Inspired by Agriculture , a compilation of stories by California schoolchildren who won an annual contest sponsored by the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom. High school art students illustrated the stories. (See story on Page 30.) Paperback fromwww. LearnAboutAg.org. $7. If your kid doesn’t love to eat veggies, seeing them in a new light might help. Amalia Hoffman’s Astro Pea takes little ones on an imaginative adventure, as Pete the pea explores a veg-filled universe with the help of his carrot spaceship. A simple story makes this book a good fit for the youngest of eaters. Board book from Schiffer Publishing. $9.99.
San Francisco-based floral design duo Amanda Luu and Ivanka Matsuba reimagine the centuries- old Japanese art of flower arranging in Ikebana Unbound . With a primer on the tenets of ikebana and step-by-step instructions for creating a variety of seasonally inspired arrangements with an East-meets- West sensibility, the book can serve as a jumping-off point for endless variation here in the nation’s top floral state. Hardcover from Artisan. $24.95.
California Bountiful’s BookReviews highlight books related to rural living and California agriculture. To suggest a book, email us at info@californiabountiful.com.
www.californiabountiful.com 11
Powered by FlippingBook