Ruth Kassinger

Say "algae" and most people think of pond scum. What they don't know is that without algae, none of us would exist.

How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us

Slime

The Garden of Marvels

-- Bloom will overturn everything you thought you knew about algae and the immense power that they hold. This could be the future of our rapidly changing world.

From Food to Fuel, The Epic Story of How Algae Can Save Our World

Bloom

Paradise Under Glass is a witty and absorbing memoir about one woman’s unlikely desire to build, stock, and tend a small conservatory in her suburban Maryland home. Ruth Kassinger’s wonderful story of the unique way she chose to cope with the profound changes in her life—a book that will delight readers of Eat, Pray, Love and I Feel Bad About My Neck—is interwoven with the fascinating history of conservatories from the Renaissance orangeries to the glass palaces of Kew.

An Amateur Creates a Conservatory Garden

Paradise Under Glass

Discover the secrets behind some amazing inventions! Through observation, experimentation, and perseverance, humansthrough the ages have managed to solve a whole array of perplexingproblems. These solutions have included such incredible inventionsas the parachute, the periscope, the solar water heater, thesuspension bridge, the stethoscope, and many more. Now, with Builda Better Mousetrap in hand, you too can experience your own Eureka!moments of inspiration and sharpen your problem-solving skills aswell, while you explore the history and science behind some of theworld's most exciting inventions. With this collection of fascinating, hands-on projects you'lldiscover the answers to such intriguing questions as: Who inventedthe hovercraft? Why is there a hole in the top of a parachute? Whatis an Aerobie and why does it fly so well? And you'll be encouragedto come up with your own awesome inventions. With easy-to-followinstructions on how to make everything from a rocket, to akaleidoscope, to a bottle organ, Build a Better Mousetrap is filledwith enough exciting projects and challenges to get you started ona lifetime of invention.

Make Classic Inventions, Discover Your Problem-Solving Genius, and Take the Inventor's Challenge

Build a Better Mousetrap

Combing the curiosity of The Botany of Desire and the playful spirit of Wicked Plants, a witty and engaging history of botany and gardening memoir from the author of Paradise Under Glass—an easy-to-follow, anecdotal tutorial on the fascinating science of plants. In Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger— a self-described "wanton killer of plants"—recounted with grace, humor, and poignancy her moving journey from brown thumb to green, sharing the lessons she learned building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis. In A Garden of Marvels, she enhances and extends her story. While Kassinger successfully created her dream conservatory and rectified her initial gardening mistakes—the over-watering and under-fertilizing that often kill plants—she realized she had no idea what to do to help them thrive. Until she completely understood how plants actually worked, she couldn’t know exactly what they needed. In her friendly and reassuring voice Kassinger introduces the basic botany of plants—flowers, roots, stems, and leaves—and explains how they function together. Combining science and botanical knowledge with reflections on her personal quest to become a better gardener, and illustrated with more than two-dozen black and white drawings, Garden of Marvels is a journey of discovery that offers fresh and unexpected insights into the natural.

How We Discovered that Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants

A Garden of Marvels

In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today’s extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab. In Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounted with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing lessons she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis. In A Garden of Marvels, she extends the story. Frustrated by plants that fail to thrive, she sets out to understand the basics of botany in order to become a better gardener. She retraces the progress of the first botanists who banished myths and misunderstandings and discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, roots choose their food, and hormones make morning glories climb fence posts. She also visits modern gardens, farms, and labs to discover the science behind extraordinary plants like one-ton pumpkins, a truly black petunia, a biofuel grass that grows twelve feet tall, and the world's only photosynthesizing animal. Transferring her insights to her own garden, she nurtures a "cocktail" tree that bears five kinds of fruit, cures a Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi, and gets a tree to text her when it's thirsty. Intertwining personal anecdote, accessible science, and untold history, the ever-engaging author takes us on an eye-opening journey into her garden—and yours.

Ruth Kassinger

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