Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking
by Yamuna Devi
E P Dutton

Our Price: $39.95

I have had this book for six years now, and it has always been a comfort and an inspiration to me. First and foremost Indian vegetarian cooking is the most intricate, nuanced, and involved cuisine that I have ever come across; this cookbook is all of those things in the utmost, but it is also reader-and-home-cook-friendly. Yamuna Devi precedes each recipe with the history and background of the dish and the foods that it is best coupled with. Then most recipes call for an excitingly large number ingredients (all of them can be tweaked, and they are easy to find at any Indian market), and she gives just the right amount of details to realize your perfect dish. Among my favorites are Fried Panir Cheese in Seasoned Tomato Stock, Char-Flavored Spiced Eggplant and Potatoes, and Spiced Green Beans. About twice a year I wake up in the morning and, because of the breadth of this cookbook and the sheer weight of my love for it, I tell myself that I only want to spend all day making four curries that day, and a raita, and a chutney, and a bread! Huzzah!

The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
by Pico Iyer
Vintage Books

Our Price: $14.95

I began reading this book not because I was very interested in the Dalai Lama, but because I wanted to read my first Pico Iyer. As the book progressed I was delighted to find that the Dalai Lama became a dynamic, historic, and loveable person, and I had Pico Iyer to thank. It bothered me that the Dalai Lama seems to be more of a symbol than anything else (someone's got to be the greatest guy on earth). But as I read I found that he is also an important religious figure with the whole of Tibetan history behind him and an entirely unsure, frightening future stretched out ahead. Iyer follows the Dalai Lama to Vancouver, Japan, Dharamsala and elsewhere, exploring the problems inherent in being both the world's greatest advocate for peace and the head of a religion, someone who is at the same time intensely spritual and wholly pragmatic. He is constantly on the move and has to please politicians, journalists, fans and followers who have various and competing needs and interests. Ae comes out of all that smelling like roses. Well researched and very personal (Iyer has known His Holiness since childhood), The Open Road is great for lovers of history, travel, religion, or biography. For an author to take a one-dimensional idea and turn him into a three dimensional human being (whom I think I now love) is pure authorial talent.

Picnics: And Other Outdoor Feasts
by Claudia Roden
Grub Street the Basement

Our Price: $29.95

Vegetable dips, cold fish, meat pies, champagne menus, pates, terrines, galantines, Japanese picnics, Middle Eastern picnics, Southeast Asian picnics! And if all that (and the other 45 subsections) isn't enough, Claudia Roden's book "Picnics and Other Outdoor Feasts" contains a section on primitive ways of cooking to tie everything together at the end. Picnics and indeed all outdoor feasts are a symbol of all things good in summertime. They need not be expensive, they are delightful in city and country, and they are the most charming of social occasions, where you can just as easily wear a pair of cutoff jeans or a pretty summer dress. Roden, my favorite coobook writer, seizes all of those components her book, adding a great deal of historical and global context to the idea of the picnic. She gives hundreds of recipes, many of which are loose guidelines, allowing personalization and improvisation in your picnic prep. This book will inspire your summer.

Anthill: A Novel
by E.O. Wilson
W W Norton & Co Inc

Our Price: $24.95

Anthill is a fantastic blend of an exciting and well-crafted storyline (two, actually) with the contagious enthusiasm of a dedicated and passionate biologist. I was tickled by Wilson’s detailed account of the flora and fauna of Alabama, both rural and urban, and of Cambridge, too. Wilson’s writing reflects both the confidence of a man who knows better than anyone the subject matter about which he is writing, and the modesty of a first-time novelist.

In the main storyline, a boy grows up in Alabama; his love for one piece of land near his home is unwavering, but his respect for and understanding of it grows as he gets older. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel about environmental conservation, but this book shows that any subject can provide the foundation of a great story if written with care, enthusiasm, and panache. And I’m not one for inspiring stories, but this one genuinely made me feel the importance of knowing your environmental surroundings, and understanding their value, both personal and monetary.

Wilson digresses in the middle of the book to tell a different (but not unrelated; in a book about ecosystems everything is related) story about the ants living on the same plot of land that our boy loves so much. I don’t want to spoil this part, because it’s short and I couldn’t do it justice, but believe me when I tell you this: ants are not boring.