My dream book would be an oversized book with intricate illustrations - but thats because I'm an illustrator not a writer. The kinda books I admire are being published and are being read - like 'Botany of Desire' and 'The Orchid Thief'. But I will say I love stumbling across some old obscure book or booklet on gardening at the used book store.

How cool is that? I also like intricate illustrations-in fact I paint/sculpt for money, I prefer to do small detailed things and when I attempt bigger things--end up in a love/hate thing--studying them forever and disliking them. I think though--i'm more of a writer than artist. I would definately read your book. =) mary

I would write a book that told some life history and tied it as close as I could to gardening which runs in and out of my life when I am younger. I would hope to write along the lines of Henry Mitchell - my idol. I would like people to connect with what I feel when I am in the garden. I think if someone reads a garden book and feels entertained and learns 2 or 3 new things they should be pleased.

I have always wondered what people will say about me after I am dead. As far as I can tell, still being alive, there is no way I will ever know. Unless reincarnation is for real.
I hate writing into the wind for the same reason. I want feed back.
So if I could write a book in the way I wanted, it would have a video or CD included or some other gizmo I don't know about ( a very likely thing). There would be a scratch and sniff page for Zepherine Drouin and another for Cherry Laurel and another for soil. There would be a virtual reality plug in transmitting the thrill a four year old has when she sees a seed sprout. There would also be the bare foot feeling of cold dew on grass.
It would be a multi media package the size of a Hummer but if I could write all that into a book and take my readers along with me that would be the book I would write.

And the book we all would love to read, and scratch....

Hmm, I could go for sniffing the third part of "The Botany of Desire!"

The next "Harry Potter" or just any old blockbuster with a movie deal would do.

I dont think I will ever be a successful writer, or artist. only probably have my small circle of appreciate readers and art buyers--cuz i just find for me --I cant write or paint about things I dont I care about. Money matters,but not enough to change me. Mary

A book on what happens to the family of stroke victims and what they go through from begining to end.

Wow Leveta... that makes me realize moreso how important it is for me to get my blood pressure under control. Funny--when you just think of your own health its not as big a deal as when you think of your family having to contend with you sick. Mary

I'd like to write about my gardening experiences and somhow magically make them interesting...a tall order when I think how boring my life has been. But I guess if I could make it humorous it would be interesting wouldn't it? "A year in Provance" could have been pretty dry, if not for the author's ability to see humor in every little one of life's bumps.

What would I like people to say about me after I'm Dead? Now that's an interesting question. When they file past my coffin, I'd like them to say, "Hey look, I think she's breathing!" Cheryl

I'd write about naked girls.

WooHoo!

You had better all get to writing if you want to realize your dreams in this lifetime. Think about poor Harvey Schwartz, the guy who wrote the Hokey Pokey who died recently at the age of 93. They had a terrible time at his casket. They put his left foot in......

What was that all about, anyway?
I'd like to write a book containing the garden essays that are too "far out" for the magazine editors I send them to because they contain things like fairies, the living spirit of the Empress Josephine--o.k. I sold that one but only by having the rosarian hit her head. Why can't the gardening magazines acknowledge that gardens are as much the stuff of fantasy as of science?

I'd write the book I wrote five years ago (hammered it out in three and a half weeks flat), but my publisher would love it and see that it was really a work of genius, rather than telling me it didn't fit with my current series and they couldn't take it. Not that I'm bitter.

I don't know -- I pretty much do write whatever I want, and my feeling is that if I have a "dream book" in me, I just go ahead and start on it.

I wrote the book I wanted to last year (gardening philosophy, humor, and anecdotes like the OP suggested here) and self-published. Planning followup this year, but getting it somewhere other than a self-publishing group is turning out to be a chore. Any ideas, anyone?

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Musings

A memoir.

Tropicalfreak