Spring gloriously sprang into our lives a few weeks ago here in central Mississippi, but the calendar says the first actual day of spring was Sunday, March 20! Hurray, hurray, hurray for all of us gardeners, and a double hurray for the beginning of daylight savings time, which started a week ago! For avid gardeners, that gives us one whole extra hour of daylight to get home on weekday afternoons and work in our gardens!

My garden, which I designed several years ago, continues to change and evolve. I try new perennials and annuals. I move plants around. I experiment. That is half the fun of gardening. When I hear of a flower, previously unknown to me, or if I happen to see a new one in a garden center, I usually go home and research it in one of my Southern gardening books before I buy it. For instance, last summer I planted green zinnia seeds and was very happy with the results. This year I have planted the most gorgeous blue and white lobelia in a container, as well as the newly cultivated tiny profusely blooming petunia. I also have gotten my tomatoes going now.

Although the tried and true Southern gardening books, of which we have many here at Lemuria, still jump from my bookshelves as references, specialty gardening books give us gardeners more information on specific species of flowers. I, personally, consult Lemuria’s garden section often.  Having been “in charge” of the gardening section since I began work at Lemuria almost five years ago now, I have asked John to order more and more specialty gardening titles. I believe that we have the best gardening section anywhere in the South!   Below follows a list of some of Lemuria’s specialty flower books:

The New Book of Salvias: Sages for Every Garden by Betsy Clebsch:  over 150 species and significant hybrids are described and photographed

Impatiens: The Vibrant World of Busy Lizzies, Balsams, and Touch-Me-Nots: descriptions and photographs of over 200 impatiens

Timber Press Pocket Guide to Shade Perennials by W. George Schmid: not only hostas and ferns but 1000 other shade loving perennials

Hibiscus: Hardy and Tropical Plants for the Garden by Barbara Perry Lawton: tropical and subtropical plants of over 200 hibiscus species

Begonias: Cultivation, Identification and Natural History by Mark C. Tebbitt:  hardy and semi-hardy species identified, descriptions and photographs

A Book of Blue Flowers by Robert Geneve: 150 photos of various blue flowers from gardens around the world

Hydrangeas for American Gardens by Michael A. Dirr: a true reverence guide to propagation, pruning, breeding, drying, designing of hydrangeas

Clematis for Small Spaces: 150 High-Performance Plants for Patios, Decks, Balconies and Borders by Raymond J. Evison: exploration of new cultivars

Fuchsias by John Nicholass: a guide to cultivation of over 450 fuchsias

Green Flowers by Alison Hoblyn: green annuals, perennials, bulbs and orchids with planting schemes

Happy Gardening! If I may ever help you in any way with gardening books, please contact me at nan@lemuriabooks.com, or come into the store,and I’ll show you our specialty flower books. I encourage you to branch out (not a pun) this year and try some green or blue flowers!  -Nan

Here are a few thrillers for my murder and mayhem lovers to check out for spring.

Love You More by Lisa Gardner

Who Do You Love?  And How Far Would You Go…..To Save Her?

In a split second state police trooper, Tessa Leoni had to decide to shoot her husband, Brian Darby.  When Det. D.D. Warren arrives on the scene to what should be an open and shut case since Tessa claims to have shot her husband in self defense and she has the bruises to confirm the story Det. Warren learns that the six-year old daughter is missing.  Det. Warren knows that Tessa is not telling the full truth about what happened that day in the kitchen but just cannot put her finger on it.  “Would a trained police officer really shoot her own husband? And would a mother harm her own child?’

For Tessa the nightmare is just beginning….she has one goal and that is find her daughter but who can she trust to help her?  She knows she must use all of her training and every trick in the book to do what she has to do, no sacrifice to great and no action unthinkable.  She, as a mother, knows who she loves and will stop at nothing to save her daughter and make those who destroyed her family pay for what they have done.

The Informationist by Taylor Stevens

Corporations Need Her. Governments Pay Her. Criminals Fear Her. But Nobody Sees Her Coming.

Move over Lisbeth here is Vanessa Michael Munroe….If you need to find out well basically anything the person to hire is Michael Munroe.  She has her own unique brand of expertise, she deals with information.  She grew up in central Africa with missionary parents where she soon rebelled and took up with gunrunners and mercenaries at age 14 where she gained the respect of some of the jungles most notorious criminals until a violent incident made her go on the run.  After a decade of building a new life and very lucrative career in Dallas she gets an offer that she just cannot refuse.  Four years ago a Texas oil billionaire’s daughter disappeared in Africa and has never been heard from since.  After years of searching and coming up with nothing Munroe is his last hope for closure but for her it is more than just another job.  Munroe will need to return to the land of her childhood and the people she turned her back on when she ‘ran away’. As she becomes more and more caught up in the mystery of the missing girl she begins to wonder if she herself will be able to make it out of the jungle again.

The Night Season helsea Cain

As we know from Cain’s third novel, female serial killer, Gretchen Lowell, has been caught (again) and is spending her time in jail.  Police detective, Archie Sheridan is recovering from his physical and mental wounds and trying to basically get his life back in order.  Reporter, Susan Ward, has just written a story about a flood that happened in Portland over 60 years ago, because the Willamette River is currently threatening the city again.  So far three people have drowned but the most recent victim  (who was found propped up on a merry go round ostrich in the amusement park) is discovered to have been poisoned before she went in the water.  After checking the other ‘drowning victims’ it is soon realized that Portland has a new serial killer on its hands and Archie and his task force are following the very strange clues with Susan hot on the trail of the story and of course finding herself too close to the danger.

Diane Ackerman has written a book about the brain; she’s written a book about the holocaust and one about gardening. Her writing is always vibrant and intimate, but with her latest book, she has explored the territory of her own nightmare: her husband’s stroke which left him unable to communicate, and its aftermath of rehabilitation.

Ackerman is married to British novelist Paul West. Together they have written nearly seventy-five books. West’s are, according to Ackerman, characterized by “flamboyant and allusive” phrases. He is a playful wordsmith, one who will say a word simply to hear the sound of it, just to relish the feel of it in his mouth. He makes up many words too, hyphenating, abbreviating, and then mashing the bits back together to create a nuance of meaning. He enjoys surprising his wife with new phrases to describe her, new ways to show his adoration.

One Hundred Names for Love is the story of Ackerman’s struggle – watching her husband, who got so much joy out of language, struggle to communicate, able to let out only a single, frustrating syllable, “mem,” she wrestles with her own knowledge of the way our minds work, knowledge that leaves her disappointingly void of hope. Her empathy for West’s situation, however, eventually leads to her discovery of a breakthrough.

I don’t know what the breakthrough is yet; I’m only in chapter four. But I do know one comes, because in the first few chapters, when describing West’s stroke and the first days afterward, she relates West’s experience from his perspective, “as he later told her.”

As I read, I’m discovering that Ackerman is just as much of a wordsmith as her husband. She uses common images in surprising ways, employing all of the guns in her arsenal: her naturalist sensibilities, her sophisticated understanding of human behavior, and her intimate connection with her subject.

We have a winner for our Grisham contest:

How many books has John Grisham signed for Lemuria bookstore since his debut novel, A Time to Kill?

Vicky Myers has won with her guess of 75,001.

The runner-up was Bethany Thompson with a guess of 84,444.

The actual number of books signed at Lemuria–figured by John Grisham–is 79,000.

The Prize Pot:

• A uniquely signed first edition of The Confession
• A signed poster for The Confession
• A bottle of Cathead Vodka
• A signed first edition of The King of Torts
• A limited signed edition of The Chamber.
• A signed first edition of The Painted House
• A signed first edition of The Bleachers
• A signed first edition of The Runaway Jury

Thanks to everyone who participated!

i found this gem of a book when i was working our catalogs the other day and had to build a file for the paperback that is coming out this spring.

i realize that i’m way too young to remember when bozo the clown was portrayed by larry harmon but i do remember the  show when bozo was played by joey d’auria.

“Harmon had the vision and drive to take advantage of the growing television industry and make a better future for Bozo. He renamed the character “Bozo, The World’s Most Famous Clown” and modified the voice, laugh and costume. He then worked with a wig stylist to get the wing-tipped bright orange style and look of the hair that had previously appeared in Capitol’s Bozo comic books.” –wikipedia

the most vivid memory i have of the show is the bozo bucket bonanza grad prize game where kids had to toss the ping pong balls into the the numbered buckets in sequential order to win a prize.

to keep with my last blogs theme of amazing book art, the design and layout of the book is quite remarkable.  the book was designed by Meat and Potatoes, Inc.

“Kick off your shoes, take a deep breath, and pull up a seat next to your ol’ pal. You’re many fingers old now, so I can tell you things I never dared to share when you were younger.  Let’s start off by talking about love.  Yes, love.  Because as long as there’s love, there are going to be kids.  And as long as there are kids, there’s going to be a world.  And as long as there’s a world, there’s going to be a Bozo, which means there will be a me.  And this is my story.  It is also Bozo’s story.  And what a story it is…” -from the back cover