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|  | The Lawn by Virginia Scott Jenkins
Lawns now blanket thirty million acres of the United States, but until the late nineteenth century few Americans had any desire for a front lawn, much less access to seeds for growing one. In her comprehensive history of this uniquely American obsession, Virginia Scott Jenkins traces the origin of the front lawn aesthetic, the development of the lawn-care industry, its environmental impact, and modern as well as historic alternatives to lawn mania. AUTHOR: Virginia Scott Jenkins
PUBLISHER: Smithsonian Institution Press
FORMAT: E-book
CATEGORY: Gardening 
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 | The Picture of Dorian Gray by Dan Lazar, Donald L. Lawler, Fern Siegel, Gary Schmidgall, Isobel M. Murray
Oscar Wilde's classic work is about a man who sells his soul for eternal youth: only his portrait ages, while he remains forever handsome and young. Wilde's allegory, first published in 1890, provides an interesting take on the Faust myth and also a probing examination of human values. Wilde himself described it as the story of an idea that is old in the history of literature, but to which I have given new form. He was shocked and angered by the response to it by the English press, which considered the novel decadent, corrupting, and--worst of all--French-influenced. AUTHOR: Dan Lazar, Donald L. Lawler, Fern Siegel, Gary Schmidgall, Isobel M. Murray
PUBLISHER: Wordsworth Editions, Limited
FORMAT: Paperback
CATEGORY: Fiction
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 | Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Fred Kaplan, Graham Law, Hilary M. Schor, Jane Jacobs
The daughter of a circus performer, abandoned by her father, is adopted by the coldhearted Thomas Gradgrind, whose own children have been reared in a bleak and loveless household and whose lives threaten to be ruined accordingly. A parallel story involves an honest millworker town between his drunken wife and a sympathetic fellow worker at the mill; eventually, he is executed for a crime committed by Gradgrind. HARD TIMES is one of Dickens's typical novels, in which natural, loving, and warmhearted characters like the circus folk are contrasted with those who are pragmatic and ruthless, like Gradgrind. AUTHOR: Charles Dickens, Fred Kaplan, Graham Law, Hilary M. Schor, Jane Jacobs
PUBLISHER: Random House Adult Trade Publishing Group
FORMAT: Paperback
CATEGORY: Fiction
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 | Mcteague by Frank Norris
Frank Norris`s MCTEAGUE, about a San Francisco dentist who sinks into degradation, poverty, and crime after he is exposed as a charlatan, shocked readers when it was first published in 1899. But as Norris said, I told them the truth. They liked it or they didn`t like it. What had that to do with me? He died a few years later, at the age of 32. AUTHOR: Frank Norris
PUBLISHER: N A L
FORMAT: Paperback
CATEGORY: Fiction
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 | Dry-Land Gardening by Jennifer Bennett
When Jennifer Bennett moved almost a decade ago, the fact that her new home was in the same zone as the old one was virtually all the two locations had in common. The first had been lush and shady, with a stream out back. The new place was atop a limestone hill, exposed and windy. In summer, the soil quickly dried after a rain, and rains seldom came. Bennett's challenge became how to deal with hot, drought-like summer conditions and variable winters that are snowy one week, rainy the next, then ice-glazed. An adaptive gardener by nature, Bennett became engaged in xeriscaping, an approach to gardening that favors not only water conservation but also the conservation of time, energy and other resources. The dry garden is distinctive. Brighter, open, with gray foliage and the waxy foliage of succulents, it depends more on ground covers and mulches than on stately flowering perennials. Xeriscaping enthusiasts exist everywhere, from the American deserts to the Canadian prairies and the American Midwest. Thus Dry-Land Gardening is not about Bennett's garden but about dry-gardening strategies: coping with limited access to water, invasive plants and trees under stress, nurturing-ground covers and grasses, starting bulbs, perennials and vines, and growing vegetables, herbs and annual flowers successfully. The dry garden, says Bennett, gives more to the environment than it takes away. A few skills and the right plants add to a garden with a different sort of beauty, one that leaves your time and your conscience free and easy . Fully illustrated, the text includes recommendations for dozens of winter-hardy, drought-tolerant plants. AUTHOR: Jennifer Bennett
PUBLISHER: Firefly Books, Limited
FORMAT: Paperback
CATEGORY: Gardening
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 | The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
Description not available.A Black youth in rural Kansas of the 1920's must make a difficult decision after he witnesses a murder AUTHOR: Gordon Parks
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books
FORMAT: Paperback
CATEGORY: Fiction
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