Casting caution to the wind at the age of fifty, New York caterer and food writer Bonnie Lee Black decided to close her catering business and join the Peace Corps. Posted to the tiny town of Lastoursville in the thickly rainforested interior of Gabon, Central Africa, Bonnie taught health, nutrition, and cooking, in French, primarily to local African women and children. In the two years she served in Gabon, Bonnie developed her own healthy recipe for a purposeful life, made in equal measures of good food, safe shelter, meaningful work, and unexpected love. Like M.F.K. Fisher's classic, World...

Gardening enthusiasts and those who love to read about gardening will be delighted by this new collection of Elizabeth Lawrence's work. A gifted landscape architect and writer, Lawrence (1904-85) chronicled her experiences with plants in a voice treasured for its distinctive blend of horticultural expertise and stylistic elegance. Through her six books, all still in print, Lawrence continues to inspire an ever-widening circle of dedicated readers everywhere.

Between 1932 and 1978, Lawrence wrote more than fifty articles for gardening magazines, newsletters, and plant society...