I think you're refering to "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. It's an excellent book for beginning gardneners.

-elmo

You may, also, want to read the book How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons.

Terran

Both are very good books, but I would recommend Bartholomew's book first, and Jeavon's second. To me, Sq Ft Gardening is an excellent how-to basic with superb info on growing vegs consecutively which doesn't overwhelm the nervous novice; while Jeavons' book seems aimed at practical gardening for self-sufficiency, which is a bigger chunk of knowledge for the beginner to chew on.

And if you want to really round out the good-n-simple info, try Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvesting - sometimes I think that should be attached to SFG, just to keep reminding us that when it comes to vegs, the point of the whole thing is to harvest.