"So many books, so little time." It's not just booksellers and readers who chant this lament; book reviewers have an added burden. Guilt. There is much published that is worthy of notice, but both time and space are limited. So we are introducing Shelf Sample: a review-ette, as it were, with an excerpt of a book we really like, brief and hopefully intriguing.

Wendy Johnson, author of Gardening at the Dragon's Gate (Bantam, $25 trade paper original, 9780553378030, March 4, 2008), has been meditating and gardening at Green Gulch Zen Center in northern California for more than 30 years. In this 447-page tome, she writes of everything one could wish for, from the art and practice of watering the garden, to pruning roses, to kitchen-generated garden sprays, to the pleasures of walking in the garden under a full moon. Beautifully illustrated by Davis Te Selle, laced with tasty recipes, filled with wisdom, this is a book that propagates dreams and plans. From the book:

"I am a garden dreamer, but a practical one, rooted in working the round and sustained by pushing wheelbarrows full of growing plants. The garden will never be a metaphor for me, but always an actual place of danger and wanton beauty. When I walk into a garden I step into paradise with an address, paradise located on earth."