Giftable Adopt-a-Books for the Holiday Season

Giftable Adopt-a-Books for the Holiday Season

Did you know you can honor friends and family, enable important research, and skip the mall this holiday season?
Adopting
an item from the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is a unique way to celebrate your loved ones while providing essential funding to support our work. Whether your gift funds the preservation of volumes from hundreds of years ago, the purchase of new titles for our collection, or increased accessibility to items on our shelves, your adoption enables all that we do.
While you can’t wrap up your adopted books and put them under the tree, your purchase will be honored with a digital bookplate and the warm feeling of knowing you’ve helped further critical work at the Smithsonian Institution.  From our list of
adoptable items
, we think you’ll find something for just about everyone on your list.
For the Green Thumb:
Biggle orchard book: fruit and orchard gleanings from bough to basket
By Jacob Biggle. Philadelphia: W. Atkinson Co., 1911.
Cover,
Biggle orchard book: fruit and orchard gleanings from bough to basket
(1911).
This pocket-sized book is part of the Biggle Farm Library, a collection of volumes that cover a gamut of agricultural topics from gardening to beekeeping to raising pigs and horses. The author, Jacob Biggle, states that his book “aims to tell the inquiring reader just what he or she needs to know—no more, no less.” The book starts with advice about the proper planning and siting of an orchard where he advises putting on “your thinking cap” and taking your time. He also covers planting and pruning trees, pest and weed control, picking, and packing fruit for market.
For the Interior Design Enthusiast:
Ceramica Industrial “El Aguila, S.A.” : hecho en Mexico
By Ceramica Industrial “El Aguila, S.A.”. México, D.F. : Ceramica Industrial “El Aguila, S.A.”, [1941].
“Paños”,
Ceramica Industrial “El Aguila, S.A.” : hecho en Mexico
, [1941].
This catalog is from the Mexican “Eagle Industrial Ceramic Co.” With beautiful full-color chromolithographic illustrations of the tiles, it demonstrates the various uses of their designs for fountains, seating, open spaces, and other decorative design applications, as well as samples of individual tile patterns.  It includes examples of classic Arabesque, Moorish, and Mediterranean majolica tile designs. The forward and introduction discuss the history and tradition of tiles and their use in Mexico, describing them as “the combination of bricks and glass…the tiles of old Europe came to our land with colors of the skies, clouds, seas, and suns…they stand tall today in our homes and parks.”
For the Amateur Chef:
Marion Harland’s cook book of tried and tested recipes
By Marion Harland (1830-1922). Chicago, IL: L.W. Walter Co., 1907.
Cover,
Marion Harland’s cook book of tried and tested recipes
(1907).
There were few writers of the 19th century as prolific or variegated as Mary Virginia Tehune, who was best known by her nom de plume M…