Books to consider when filling holiday wish lists

Books still make great holiday gifts for homeowners and gardeners. Not only do they fit all tastes, needs and budgets, but they are easy to mail.

And while downloadable books are hard to beat for reading on cross-Atlantic flights, a Kindle might not add that much to the arrangement on a coffee table.

Here are several books to consider when shopping in the decorating and gardening categories.

Interiors#376;If you know someone with the time and desire to make their own holiday decorations, they will love #8220;Martha Stewart's Handmade Holiday Crafts,#8221; (Potter Craft, $24.98). Check out the lush paper evergreens made from green card stock for Christmas, and for Hanukkah she gets high tech by putting a template online that fans can download to punch out designs for elegant hurricane lamps. The book covers a year of holidays.#376;#8220;Timeless Elegance: The Houses of David Easton,#8221; (Stewart, Tabori Chang, $65), shows the versatility of this American architect and interior designer, says the publisher. #8220;Black-and-white pencil drawings alongside museum-quality watercolors by Easton's partner, James Steinmeyer, show the conception and development of the rooms, accompanied by stunning photographs of the finished interiors.#8221;#376;A choice for budget decorating is #8220;Frank Fontana's Dirty Little Secrets of Design,#8221; Stewart, Tabori Chang, $24.95). The guru for HGTV's #8220;Design on a Dime#8221; shows great rooms and tells us how to get the look for less.#376;#8220;Hers: Design with a Feminine Touch#8221; by Jacqueline deMontravel (Clarkson Potter, $35) is about creating a space for the woman who might not necessarily have everything #8212; even a room of her own. It's not all lace and frills either, because your gift is going to a modern woman.#376;#8220;Big, Easy Style#8221; by Bryan Batt (Clarkson Potter, $35) is for the New Orleans fan that you must have on your list. Some are rooms the #8220;Mad Men#8221; actor designed himself, others just inspire him. These include an Old World kitchen #8220;imported straight from the heart of France#8221; and #8220;a luxurious Art Deco media room.#8221; #376;Your friend or relative will need at least a fondness for birds to appreciate the beauty of #8220;The Birding Life: A Passion for Birds at Home and Afield,#8221; by Laurence Sheehan with photographs by William Stites (Potter, $50). The photographs are fabulous, and many convey ideas on displaying collections and decorating with birds #8212; live, wooden, ceramic, painted and photographed.Gardens#376;History lovers as well as gardeners will enjoy #8220;How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Curious (but True) Stories of Common Vegetables#8221; by Rebecca Rupp (Storey, $14.95). #8220;Popcorn was breakfast food in colonial New England, eaten with milk and maple sugar#8230;.#8221;#376;Most of us will never have a garden designed by James Van Sweden, but fans will want to keep up with his work and gather some of his tips from #8220;The Artful Garden,#8221; (Random House, $40). And the famous landscape architect is practically local, thanks to his work at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and Chicago's Millennium Park.#376;#8220;The Complete Gardener's Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Care for your Garden#8221; (DK, $30) is just one of several gardening offerings from DK. From designing gardens to selecting varieties and using containers and pruning, this book covers all the bases.#376;#8220;The Midwestern Native Garden#8221; by Charlotte Adelman Bernard L. Schwartz (Ohio University Press, $26.95) gives color illustrations of examples of nonnative plants and the native alternatives that anyone who thinks growing natives is important will appreciate. But we're not sure that day lily lovers will be happy with blazing star, garden phlox, purple coneflowers and indigo.#376;Speaking of natives, your gardener who doesn't take manicured yards and formal gardens too seriously should enjoy #8220;Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants#8221; by Richard Mabey, (HarperCollins, $25.99). Mabey is a noted English nature writer who knows both his history and weeds in our country as well as around the world.#376;#8220;The Heirloom Life Gardener,#8221; by Jere and Emilee Gettle, co-founders of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company (Hyperion, $29.99), branches well past heirloom tomatoes. But we couldn't resist the page on tomato colors. Purple and brown are #8220;the most delicious and intensely flavorful type of tomato#8221; and Baker Creek's biggest sellers. We're talking sweet and earthy, say the authors. Is it spring yet?#376;Another choice from DK is #8220;Fresh Flower Arranging#8221; by Mark Welford and Stephen Wicks, $25. While we are always looking for tips for more attractive floral arrangements, this book spends a lot of time on weddings, and extensive do-it-yourself flower arranging for the big day seems difficult because it's not something you can do much in advance.#8220;Grow Your Own Fruit#8221; by Carol Klein (Mitchell Beazley, $19.95) could become a passion. What is more fun to eat than fruit? And Klein seems to have a solution for any problem #8212; grow in a container if your lot is small; construct windbreaks if your garden is exposed to strong winds in the spring; and of course, you can always build a greenhouse. 18142526The Midwestern Native Garden Bill Zars/bzars@dailyherald.com 20222482The Artful Garden Bill Zars/bzars@dailyherald.com 22082716Gardening Step by Step Bill Zars/bzars@dailyherald.com 21402620The Birding Life Bill Zars/bzars@dailyherald.com 20642428The Complete GardenerÂ’s Guide Bill Zars/bzars@dailyherald.com