10 Best Books to Read in the Garden

The Black Dahlia

By James Ellroy

The Black Dahlia

by: James Ellroy

Amazon Price: $1.49 (as of 05/29/2012)

The flawed boxer-turned-lawman becomes obsessed with L.A.'s notorious unsolved 1947 torture-murder case, as well as the secret life of his missing partner, Lee Blanchard. Hoye proves a fine match for Ellroy's hardboiled prose, shuttling easily between hard and soft tones, crystallizing Bleichert's mix of cynicism, confusion, hurt and rage. Set in booming postwar Los Angeles, this tale of ambition, deceit and obsession builds to symphonic proportions.

Notes From A Small Island

By Bill Bryson

Notes from a Small Island

by: Bill Bryson

Amazon Price: $5.00 (as of 05/29/2012)

Before his return to the U.S. after a 20-year residence in England, journalist Bryson embarked on a farewell tour of his adopted homeland. His trenchant, witty and detailed observations of life in a variety of towns and villages will delight Anglophiles. Traveling only on public transportation and hiking whenever possible, Bryson wandered along the coast through Bournemouth and neighboring villages that reinforced his image of Britons as a people who rarely complain and are delighted by such small pleasures as a good tea.

Time And Again

By Jack Finney

Time and Again

by: Jack Finney

Amazon Price: $7.72 (as of 05/29/2012)

Sleep. And when you awake everything you know of the twentieth century will be gone from your mind. Tonight is January 21, 1882. There are no such things as automobiles, no planes, computers, television. 'Nuclear' appears in no dictionary. You have never heard the name Richard Nixon.
Did illustrator Si Morley really step out of his twentieth-century apartment one night -- right into the winter of 1882? The U.S. Government believed it, especially when Si returned with a portfolio of brand-new sketches and tintype photos of a world that no longer existed -- or did it?

I Know This Much Is True

By Wally Lamb

I Know This Much Is True: A Novel (P.S.)

by: Wally Lamb

Amazon Price: $7.55 (as of 05/29/2012)

An honest, moving account of one man's search, denial, and acceptance of self. This is no easy feat considering his grandfather seemed to take parenting tips from the SS and his grandmother was a possible teenage murderess, his stepfather a latent sadist, and his brother, Thomas, a politically motivated psychopath. Dominick continues the dysfunctional legacy with rape, a failed marriage, a nervous breakdown, SIDS, a car crash, and a racist conspiracy against a coworker--just to name a few.

The Nanny Diaries

By Emma McLaughlin

The Nanny Diaries: A Novel

by: Emma Mclaughlin, Nicola Kraus

Amazon Price: $1.00 (as of 05/29/2012)

The adventures of the aptly named Nan as she negotiates the Byzantine byways of working for Mrs. X, a Park Avenue mommy. Nan's 4-year-old charge, the hilariously named Grayer (his pals include Josephina, Christabelle, Brandford, and Darwin) is a genuinely good sort. He can't help it if his mom has scheduled him for every activity known to the Upper East Side, including ice skating, French lessons, and a Mommy and Me group largely attended by nannies.

The Time Traveler's Wife

By Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife

by: Audrey Niffenegger

Amazon Price: $1.89 (as of 05/29/2012)

Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she'd known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare's childhood and meeting her as a 6-year-old.

The Red Tent

By Anita Diamant

The Red Tent: A Novel

by: Anita Diamant

Amazon Price: $5.08 (as of 05/29/2012)

Skillfully interweaving biblical tales with events and characters of her own invention, Diamant's sweeping first novel re-creates the life of Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, from her birth and happy childhood in Mesopotamia through her years in Canaan and death in Egypt. When Dinah reaches puberty and enters the Red Tent (the place women visit to give birth or have their monthly periods), her mother and Jacob's three other wives initiate her into the religious and sexual practices of the tribe.

The Orchid Thief

By Susan Orlean

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by: Susan Orlean

Amazon Price: $3.96 (as of 05/29/2012)

The Orchid Thief centers on south Florida and John Laroche, a quixotic, charismatic schemer once convicted of attempting to take endangered orchids from the Fakahatchee swamp, a state preserve. Laroche, a horticultural consultant who once ran an extensive nursery for the Seminole tribe, dreams of making a fortune for the Seminoles and himself by cloning the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii. Filled with Palm Beach socialites, Native Americans, English peers, smugglers, and naturalists, this is a lyrical, funny, addictively entertaining read.

French Dirt

By Richard Goodman

French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France

by: Richard Goodman

Amazon Price: $2.99 (as of 05/29/2012)

Escaping the sound and fury of New York, Richard Goodman moved to a small southern French farming town St. Sebastian de Caisson, everything about which "suggests the uneventful, and the eternal." There Goodman found a tiny plot of streamside land and set about raising a copious vegetable garden, an event a seasoned New Yorker is likely to experience. He writes lovingly of tilling the soil and watching his lettuce, tomatoes, and leeks spring from the ground, but at heart his book is about the generous people he met during his stay and what they have to say about life on the land.

The Forgotten Garden

By Kate Morton

The Forgotten Garden: A Novel

by: Kate Morton

Amazon Price: $7.85 (as of 05/29/2012)

Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden takes root in your imagination and grows into something enchanting--from a little girl with no memories left alone on a ship to Australia, to a fog-soaked London river bend where orphans comfort themselves with stories of Jack the Ripper, to a Cornish sea heaving against wind-whipped cliffs, crowned by an airless manor house where an overgrown hedge maze ends in the walled garden of a cottage left to rot. This hidden bit of earth revives barren hearts, while the mysterious Authoress's fairy tales whisper truths and ignite the imaginary lives of children.

In Danger of Dying

In Danger of Dying

by: James Chapman

Amazon Price: (as of 05/29/2012)

A spectacular bus crash, escaping convicts, hostage taking, armed bank siege and love are all included in this action filled suspense thriller with a twist at the end. Negotiator Scott Bradley has been assigned to secure the hostage's safe release but he has much more than just the convicts to watch out for in this pulsating crime thriller. With the scenes unfolding through his eyes you get the unique opportunity to peek inside the dark and dangerous world of hostage negotiation.

Maybe Tomorrow

Maybe Tomorrow

by: James Chapman

Amazon Price: (as of 05/29/2012)

After tragic events cause her to lose the only love that she has known, Monica enters into a world of dark visions which threaten her survival and sanity, but she has learnt never to give up hope and eventually triumphs beyond her wildest dreams. The story line is drawn from Monica's many diary entries which depict a tale of courage, determination and the winning of a fight against all the odds. When you read this book you are witnessing events through Monica's eyes.

Living on the Lost Edge of Time

By James Chapman

Living on the Lost Edge of Time

by: James Chapman

Amazon Price: (as of 05/29/2012)

Jennifer is a romantic at heart and adores reading in the tranquil calm of the old house that is her home. But everything changes when her sleep is suddenly disturbed in the middle of the night. Rising to investigate Jennifer soon finds herself immersed in a dark and mysterious adventure. She has lived alone in the old house for the last three and a half years since her mother died and never before had felt there was any need to think she should be afraid. But Jennifer does experience real fear and in the depths of the darkness she discovers a love that is destined to change her life forever.