Algonquin Books imprint: 445 books
Island of the Lost
Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World
Language: English
Release Date: June 8, 2007
Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death.
In 1864 Captain Thomas Musgrave...
Wicked Plants
The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
Language: English
Release Date: May 21, 2009
A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. In Wicked Plants, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill,...
Kitty Cornered
How Frannie and Five Other Incorrigible Cats Seized Control of Our House and Made It Their Home
Language: English
Release Date: April 10, 2012
Bob Tarte had his first encounter with a cat when he was two and a half years old. He should have learned his lesson then, from Fluffy. But as he says, “I listened to my heart instead, and that always leads to trouble.” In this tell-all of how the Tarte household grew from one recalcitrant cat...
Flower Confidential
The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful
Language: English
Release Date: March 18, 2008
Award-winning author Amy Stewart takes readers on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes look at the flower industry and how it has sought—for better or worse—to achieve perfection. She tracks down the hybridizers, geneticists, farmers, and florists working to invent, manufacture, and sell flowers...
by Diana Wells
Language: English
Release Date: January 19, 2010
Language: English
Release Date: January 19, 2010
Diana Wells, author of 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names now turns her attention to something bigger—our deep-rooted relationship with trees. As she investigates the names and meanings of trees, telling their legends and lore, she reminds us of just how innately bound we are to these protectors...
by Bob Tarte
Language: English
Release Date: October 1, 2004
Language: English
Release Date: October 1, 2004
The book that Entertainment Weekly called "hilarious," Publishers Weekly declared "a true pleasure," Booklist called "heartwarming," and the Dallas Morning News praised as "rich and funny" is now available in paperback.
When Bob Tarte bought a house in...
From the Ground Up
The Story of a First Garden
Language: English
Release Date: January 19, 2000
Amy Stewart had a simple dream. She yearned for a garden filled with colorful jumbles of vegetables and flowers. After she and her husband finished graduate school, they pulled up their Texas roots and headed west to Santa Cruz, California. With little money in their pockets, they rented a modest...
by Emily Whaley
Language: English
Release Date: January 3, 1997
Language: English
Release Date: January 3, 1997
In conversation with William Baldwin. Emily Whaley's garden on Church Street in Charleston, South Carolina, may be the most visited private garden in the country. And no wonder. It is the life's work of a vibrant, sociable, opinionated, determined, forceful woman who has spent the last eighty-five...
Flirting with French
How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me, and Nearly Broke My Heart
Language: English
Release Date: September 16, 2014
“A delightful and courageous tale and a romping good read. Voila!” —Mark Greenside, author of I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do)
William Alexander is more than a Francophile. He wants to be French. There’s one small obstacle though: he doesn’t speak la langue française....
Educating Esmé
Diary of a Teacher's First Year
Language: English
Release Date: September 1, 2009
A must-read for parents, new teachers, and classroom veterans, Educating Esmé is the exuberant diary of Esmé Raji Codell’s first year teaching in a Chicago public school. Fresh-mouthed and free-spirited, the irrepressible Madame Esmé—as she prefers to be called—does the cha-cha during multiplication...
by William Woys Weaver
Language: English
Release Date: November 1, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: November 1, 2013
A perfect leek from France. Flavorful zucchini from Italy. An infamous potato from Ireland, and a humble lentil from Ethiopia. 100 Vegetables offers a veritable cornucopia of vegetables and stories from around the world--from Argentina to Zimbabwe, from Australia to the United States. William Woys...
First Dogs
American Presidents and Their Best Friends
Language: English
Release Date: June 15, 2009
"If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog," Harry Truman once said. Perhaps that's why, for much of our Republic's history, there have been two top dogs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—one with two legs, one with four. First Dogs, by distinguished journalist Roy Rowan and researcher Brooke...
by Allison Mia Starcher
Language: English
Release Date: January 5, 1995
Language: English
Release Date: January 5, 1995
Anyone who gardens knows how snails, aphids, scale insects, and caterpillars can damage vegetables, flowers, shrubs, and trees. But not many of us know that ground beetles eat caterpillars, not plants; that dragonflies feed on mosquitoes; that parasitic wasps prey on tomato hornworms. In this delightful...
by Diana Wells
Language: English
Release Date: January 2, 1997
Language: English
Release Date: January 2, 1997
Illustrations by Ippy Patterson. From Baby Blue Eyes to Silver Bells, from Abelia to Zinnia, every flower tells a story. Gardening writer Diana Wells knows them all. Here she presents one hundred well-known garden favorites and the not-so-well-known stories behind their names. Not for gardeners only, this is a book for anyone interested not just in the blossoms, but in the roots, too.