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Food Guides: Essential & Delicious

The Flavor Thesaurus: Pairings, Recipes And Ideas For The Creative Cook

By Niki Segnit

In the store

An invaluable resource for foodies: seasoned or unseasoned!

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

By Maira Kalman, Michael Pollan

In the store

How should a person eat? Michael Pollan's beautifully illustrated guide has all the answers!

Curious History of Food and Drink

By Ian Crofton

In the store

A fun, irreverent voyage through food history - food lovers and trivia junkies rejoice!

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Buzzfeed: It's All About the Bees!
  • Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive

    By Mark L Winston

  • Keeping The Bees: Why All Bees Are At Risk And What We Can Do To

    By Laurence Packer

  • Bees: Nature's Little Wonders

    By Candace Savage

  • Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees: Honey Production, Pollination, Bee Health

    By Richard E. Bonney, Malcolm T. Sanford

  • Beekeeper's Bible: Bees Honey Recipes And Other Home Uses

    By Collins

Meditation: Where to Begin

Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

By Thich Nhat Hanh, Jon Kabat-Zinn

In the store

The bible for secular mindfulness!

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

By Jon Kabat-Zinn

In the store

A lovely poetic series of reflections to accompany Full Catastrophe Living...

Meditation For Dummies, with Audio CD

By Stephan Bodian, Dean Ornish

In the store

A wide range of meditation practices suitable for beginners with CD...

Secular Meditation: 32 Practices for Cultivating Inner Peace, Compassion, and Joy - A Guide from the Humanist Community at Harvard

By Greg Epstein, Rick Heller

In the store

From the meditation leader of the Humanist Mindfulness Group at Harvard University....

The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness

By Jon Kabat-Zinn, John Teasdale, Mark Williams

In the store

Highly recommended by many therapists, includes a helpful CD...

Non-Fiction

REVIEW: FIELD STUDY

Article By Barb Minett

Date: 31 Oct 2021

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Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium

How can reading a book about dead plants bring so much pleasure? Accompany Helen Humphries as she spends a year wandering through The Fowler Herbarium’s 140,000 dried plant species and this question may be answered.

By the way, a herbarium is not a place for raising herbs but a resting place for dried plants.

Field Study is a fascinating rendering of both the era and the individual, who, armed with just a pencil, a magnifying glass and a specimen bag spent literally years foraging for species after species. It was like the premiere self-improvement exercise of the late 1800’s – so popular that it almost drove the lady slipper into extinction.

These mostly amateur naturalists had what could be described as their own Facebook group, mailing specimens back and forth, discussing different species, collaborating and congratulating. What fun!

There are so many sociological issues revealed. One point that Helen makes over and over is the delight and pride of the collector. These amateurs were respected as if they were professionals. It was also a space where women came out of the domestic sphere and explored and contributed almost as much as men. Although she does note that women tended to collect seashore specimens as perhaps wandering around alone in the forest may have been too threatening for women at that time.

So many fascinating botanists! Cyrus Prince operated a hospital for damaged bulbs. He was a quaker who refused to fight in the civil war and instead contributed over 500,000 species to North American herbarias. And then there is the case of Marcus E. Jones. He was a loner and a homeless man with only a handcart who made his meagre living selling specimens to educated collectors who trusted him.

Along the way you learn so much about plants. Did you know that blue is the colour least found in nature but the colour that remains most itself after death? Beautiful white puff balls end up like brown mush and grasses tend to retain their original colour and vitality while most highly coloured flowers end up a shadow of their former selves.

The last and perhaps most important element of Field Study is the author herself. Helen has made herself a character in her book. She tells us how difficult her life has been recently because of the death of more than one person close to her. Her beloved dog Charlotte dies during the year. This is devastating for her. Her very authentic and lyrical prose makes this beautifully illustrated book one to collect and read and read again.

This review first appeared on Guelph Today.

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