This is a beautiful little book, and very much deserves a place on my holiday gift guide.

Author Leland Dirks spent part of his summer taking photos of the sunflowers that grow wild in his little corner of the world, from first bloom to faded seed pods. Those photos feature prominently in Sunflowers -- but in addition, Dirks weaves in quotes, facts, flash fiction, and poetry about the plants. There's even a recipe for sunflower bread.

I was surprised at the amount of sunflower lore I learned from this book. For example, did you know that the big outer petals are not the actual flower? The real flowers are the tiny yellow florets that pop out in the middle; the seeds grow under these florets. The big yellow petals around the rim aren't there for any reason other than to attract birds and insects.

Sunflowers would make a lovely gift for a gardener or a fan of wildflowers. Highly recommended.

After reading this book I looked up Hisako Hibi. Her artwork offers a look into daily life at Topaz which is very cool.

 

I also think it's cool that the story is written in both English and Japanese (complete with furigana). I didn't like how the Japanese was italicized in the English portion of the book and the romanization seemed strange (ikoo instead of ikou).

I received this book through goodreads first reads for an honest review.

I've been learning how t knit and always wanted to learn how to crochet so this seemed like a perfect book to start with given how small the sunflowers were. Plus the book seemed to have some really cute patterns. Once I opened the book, I was glad to see so many patterns and ideas. This is a great book for those who love sunflowers or just likes to knit, crochet, and felt new designs and items. I cannot wait to start trying out some of these patterns.

Cannibal Sunflowers and Van Gogh's Ear -... Cannibal Sunflowers and Van Gogh's Ear has to be in the top ten best titles of a book. (My IMO) Not one of my favorites of Catfish McDaris but some strange Beatnik writing like it should be.

Fucked nine ways to Tomorrow
"Granny used to tell me of the Mexican
Revolution, campesino's washing the
corn & grain from Pancho Villa's horse
crap to survive

She told me about a boy shitting
out a window of a train & my dad
thinking it was a fat man smoking a cigar."

That is a little preview.... Another one titled "Drinking Pussy Juice" if you have a dirty mind then you already pictured the outcome....WRONG!
What would you do if your cat just had kittens and you wanted warm milk, with none in the house.

Easy as riding a bike!