"A seven-year-old girl may set her buckteeth on fire or bite her pony, but never misses the silent rush of spring water deep within the greenest land, a land from which she, too, springs. Brimming with unsentimental innocence and the sensuality of furs, tobacco, and her mother's lemon lily beds, she draws a tough-minded, tomboy-accomplished portrait of a girlhood."--Jacket.

In his classic A Geography of Oysters, Rowan Jacobsen forever changed the way America talks about its best bivalve. Now he does the same for our favorite fruit, showing us that there is indeed life beyond Red Delicious-and even Honeycrisp. While supermarkets limit their offerings to a few waxy options, apple trees with lives spanning human generations are producing characterful varieties-and now they are in the midst of a rediscovery. From heirlooms to new designer breeds, a delicious diversity of apples is out there for the eating. Apples have strong personalities, ranging from crabby to wholesome. The Black Oxford apple is actually purple, and looks like a plum. The Knobbed Russet looks like the love child of a toad and a potato. (But don't be fooled by its looks.) The D'Arcy Spice leaves a hint of allspice on the tongue. Cut Hidden Rose open and its inner secret is revealed. With more than 150 art-quality color photographs, Apples of Uncommon Character shows us the fruit in all its glory. Jacobsen collected specimens both common and rare from all over North America, selecting 120 to feature, including the best varieties for eating, baking, and hard-cider making. Each is accompanied by a photograph, history, lore, and a list of characteristics. The book also includes 20 recipes, savory and sweet, resources for buying and growing, and a guide to the best apple festivals. It's a must-have for every foodie.

Winner of the IACP Cookbook Award (Best American Cookbook) Finalist for the Julia Child First Book Award "The perfect apple primer." —Splendid Table The Apple Lover’s Cookbook is more than a recipe book. It’s a celebration of apples in all their incredible diversity, as well as an illustrated guide to 70 popular (and rare-but-worth-the-search) apple varieties. Each has its own complete biography with entries for best use, origin, availability, season, appearance, taste, and texture. Amy Traverso organizes these 70 varieties into four categories—firm-tart, tender-tart, firm-sweet, and tender-sweet—and includes a one-page cheat sheet that you can refer to when making any of her recipes. More than 100 scrumptious, easy-to-make recipes follow, offering the full range from breakfast dishes, appetizers, salads, soups, and entrees all the way to desserts. On the savory side, there’s a cider-braised brisket and a recipe for Sweet Potato–Apple Latkes. On the sweet side, Amy serves up crisps, cobblers, pies, and cakes, including Apple-Pear Cobbler, Cider Donut Muffins, and an Apple-Cranberry Slab Pie cut into squares to eat by hand. As bonuses, The Apple Lover’s Cookbook contains detailed notes on how to tell if an apple is fresh and guides to apple festivals, ciders, and products, as well as updated information about the best times and places to buy apples across the United States, making it easy to seek out and visit local orchards, whether you live in Vermont or California. First published a decade ago, now newly revised and updated, The Apple Lover’s Cookbook is your lifetime go-to book for apples.

Based on real events, this is the story of how the Golden Delicious apple came to be. Owners of a nursery in Missouri were looking for the perfect apple. It would be sweet and juicy. In the spring of 1914, they were astonished to taste just that apple.

From the preeminent writer of Taiwanese nativist fiction and the leading translator of Chinese literature come these poignant accounts of everyday life in rural and small-town Taiwan. Huang is frequently cited as one of the most original and gifted storytellers in the Chinese language, and these selections reveal his genius. In "The Two Sign Painters," TV reporters ambush two young workers from the country taking a break atop a twenty-four-story building. "His Son's Big Doll" introduces the tortured soul inside a walking advertisement, and in "Xiaoqi's Cap" a dissatisfied pressure-cooker salesman is fascinated by a young schoolgirl. Huang's characters—generally the uneducated and disadvantaged who must cope with assaults on their traditionalism, hostility from their urban brethren and, of course, the debilitating effects of poverty—come to life in all their human uniqueness, free from idealization.

Rejoice in the goodness of God and the gift of friendships we have been given! There’s nothing like celebrating the sweet taste of true friendship. And Karla Dornacher makes it fun and easy with this delightful assortment of friendship merriment. Page after beautiful page, her charming homespun apple-themed artwork adorns recipes, poems, quotes, craft projects, personalization pages, and Scripture. The Sweet Taste of Friendship is a keepsake that’s sure to bring a lasting smile to any friend’s heart each time it’s read.

“Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as on our implication in the natural world.” —The New York Times “A wry, informed pastoral.” —The New Yorker The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?