MY WEEDS: A Gardener’s Botany by...

MY WEEDS: A Gardener’s Botany by Sara Stein (Houghton Mifflin: $11.95; 229 pp., illustrated). The author of several gardening books, Stein notes wryly that gardens produce more weeds than anything else: “Weeds coerce my attention as tenaciously as a toddler hanging on my knees. They raise all kinds of questions, not the least of which is what are they doing in my garden in the first place.” She explains how the weeds got into her garden in her entertaining accounts of common North American plant pests. Interweaving facts with stories about her own garden, Stein offers a tongue-in-cheek account that will strike a responsive chord in any frustrated gardener.