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Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler. I will stand aside and let the Oliver Sacks review speak for this one: " In this marvelous study of a bizarre museum and its self-mocking, polymath creator, [Weschler] finds an epiphany of that vast movement of discovery and wonder which created the first museums...of the sixteenth century, and that heady state of mind -- compounded of collection mania, mad taxonomy, imaginative exuberance, and naif wonder -- which formed the prelude to modern science. I found it enthralling. "

Finders, Keepers : Eight Collectors by Rosamond Wolff Purcell and Stephen Jay Gould is a remarkable photographic essay of private natural history collections, and text which helps reveal a good deal about what those collections say about the collectors.

The Savage Garden : Cultivating Carnivorous Plants by Peter D'Amato is probably the best book available on the subject of growing carnivorous plants. Highly recommended. Very detailed with excellent illustrations.

The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History by Jan Bondeson is a very interesting study of zoological curiosities and the social phenomena that surround them.

Weird & Wonderful : The Dime Museum in America by Andrea Stulman Dennett. From the Amazon review: "Dioramas and panoramas, freaks and magicians, waxworks and menageries, obscure relics and stuffed animals . . . a dazzling assortment of curiosities attracted the gaze of the 19th-century spectator at the dime museum. Author Andrea Stulman Dennett recaptures this ephemeral and scarcely documented institution of American culture from the margins of history."

Play With Your Food by Joost Elffers is the most amazing and entertaining book on food garnishing I have ever encountered. Highly recommended for anyone who happens to eat.

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