[.ca] Smith and Hawken: The Tool Book: A Compendium of Over ... (ISBN 0761121366)

From Amazon.com:
At first glance The Tool Book might look like a dry catalogue of various garden tools, but it's actually a fresh and inspiring history lesson. Author William Bryant Logan carefully intersperses his detailed descriptions of hoes, mattocks, tining forks, or pruning saws with short meditations on the tool's evolution. In a chapter entitled "Digging," he writes, "The growth of civilization paralleled the evolution of the spade and the shovel." Behind the book, there's a vision of humanity constantly forging new technology to more carefully and effortlessly shape the landscape. Amateur gardeners will learn the vast differences between cheap and expensive tools. Clear explanations of the differences between "stamping" and "forging" metal tools, and how to tell the difference, will change your perspective the next time you go to make a purchase. You will also learn why some handles are short and others are long, and why corn husks with their pointed tips led to the invention of the trowel. To Logan's credit, he understands that gardeners arbitrarily love certain tools and hate others, and thus his descriptions are objective--his book more an orientation than a lesson in the "right" way to garden. Packed with photos, The Tool Book is an essential text for anyone facing the daunting task of creating and maintaining a garden. --Emily White

A good book for choosing garden tools:
If you are a beginning gardener and don't know the difference between a shovel and a spade, or what to use them for, this book is immensely useful. It is certainly worth the price and the time it takes to browse through it to find and understand the exact tools you will need for your individual garden before you go out shopping. In addition to pages of full color pictures of each tool, it contains historic accounts regarding the tools and some nice quotes about gardening. After reading this book I felt like I understood garden tools, whereas prior to reading it, I just used tools in a haphazard way without understanding their purpose and how they could help me in the garden.