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Books A century ago, Luther Burbank was the most famous gardener on the planet. Burbank had learned the secrets of breeding and crossbreeding ordinary plants from farm and garden until they were tastier, hardier, and more productive than ever before. His name was inseparable from a cornucopia of new and improved plants — fruits, nuts, vegetables, and flowers — for both home gardens and commercial farms and orchards. The Garden of Invention revisits a time when agriculture was moving west across the continent, when plant inventors were popular heroes, and when the public clamored for new varieties that would extend seasons, increase yields, look beautiful, or simply — and wonderfully — be different from anything seen before. BUY IT NOW Penguin | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders | IndieBound  A comic novel of misplaced ambition, Fool’s Gold takes readers racing through the hill towns of Provence in search of art, fame, love, and a mysterious cache of buried treasure. "Fool's Gold does for beautiful Provence what Faulty Towers did for quaint English hotels.” —Christian Science Monitor Winner, Adult Fiction Award, Society of Midland Authors (2000) BUY IT NOW Alibris | AllBookstores | Amazon | Barnes & Noble  This history of the search for a vaccine to prevent infantile paralysis recreates the terrible decades of polio epidemics and the heroic-and often combative-collaboration of scientists, politicians, private charities, parents, and children that led to the success of the Salk polio vaccine. Winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize for Science and Technology BUY IT NOW Alibris | Allbookstores | Amazon | Barnes & Noble  The definitive biography of the pioneer interior decorator who transformed good taste from an attitude into an industry. “Absorbing, informative, rich in aesthetic detail.” —The New York Times “Superbly researched and skillfully narrated.” —Smithsonian BUY IT NOW Alibris | AllBookstores | Amazon | Barnes & Noble |
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