THE GARDEN OF PETER MARINO by Peter Marino photographed by Jason Schmidt and Manolo Yllera, Rizzoli, is a personal and in-depth tour of the famed architect’s sprawling 12-acre Hamptons estate and its exquisite gardens, showing a completely different side of his work and personality. Fantasy is indeed in the air at chez Marino with carefully curated plants, trees, and flowers including a “color wheel” of purple, pink, red, and yellow gardens, evergreen trees, an apple orchard, a formal rose garden, and nearly forty works of art by Francois-Xavier and Claude Lalanne. Seasonal floral highlights show colorful blooms of azaleas in late spring, roses in June, and hydrangeas in summer. This book reveals the landscape in different moods, captured in both a laid-back grandeur– sunny vistas, moonlit moments, the beauty of natural elements and sublime works of art–and in a moody atmosphere, when the dramatic light after a summer storm imbues the garden with a romantic haze. The garden is presented as a picturesque example of a first-rate contemporary landscape and as a dreamlike Eden.

A DAY WITH CLAUDE MONET AT GIVERNY, Flammarion, by Adrien Goetz with photography by Francis Hammond, is a beautiful volume in a luxury slipcase, the latest addition to Flammarion’s popular “A DAY WITH” series. In 224 pages and 300 color photographs, this book will be cherished by lovers of gardens, art and impressionism, travel and French history. With it you will travel through the picturesque village of Giverny and on an intimate tour of the impressionist master’s home and gardens. Reproductions of Monet’s masterpieces illustrate how the flora and fauna influenced his art.

MAMMOTH CAVE CURIOSITIES, A Guide to Rockphobia, Dating, Saber-Toothed Cats and Other Subterranean Marvels by Colleen O’Connor Olson, University Press of Kentucky, an eclectic and enlightening book that is fun and fascinating, a good layperson’s guide to a labyrinth of topics from prehistoric animals and the secret lives of subterranean critters to cave dating and all of Mammoth Cave’s rich history. Told with humor and knowledge, this is a very entertaining look at the earth’s largest known cave system.