I've painstakingly nurtured windowsill basil plants, and shooed ambitious animals out of past gardens. I might not have a bright green thumb, but there’s at least a hint of pale green there. But grow mushrooms? Don’t mushrooms just appear from little forest elves, or some such magical place? It turns out they can appear from used coffee grinds… Read More >>

Reader's Digest editor-in-chief Liz Vaccariello recently recommended an article from Bloomberg Businessweek about the worst day to buy salad for lunch. Afterwards, the folks at Businessweek posted another fascinating item on lunchtime behavior: an infographic illustrating how people act when buying their midday meal at “fast casual” restaurant chains like Chipotle, Cosi, and Pret A Manger. Businessweekobserved restaurant-goers and… Read More >>

To mark the passing of a grim milestone — the death of the 2,000th American service member in Afghanistan — the New York Times has created an extraordinary digital archivethat includes every U.S. service member killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. The archive is presented on the Times' website as a grid of tiny squares, with each square representing an individual. Clicking on a single square brings up a picture of the… Read More >>

This past weekend, friends and I had a long conversation about our latest and greatest reads. I found myself scrambling for pen and paper to write down all the recommendations. Then, a friend pulled out her laptop. Turns out, the web is home to a plethora of useful sites for book lovers:

• For the über organized: LibraryThing, Goodreads and the Amazon-owned Shelfari are free social cataloging websites that allow users to create virtual libraries based on what they are currently reading, plan to read, and have already read. Though each site is unique, users on all three can review books, share recommendations, and create or join discussion groups.

• For Pandora lovers: Just as Pandora introduces users to new music based on their tastes, BookLamp recommends new books based on features such as writing style, pace, description and dialog according to their own comparison engine, the Book Genome Project.

• For those who judge books by their covers: Never mind the old adage. The Book Cover Archive is a collection of more than 1,000 book covers, categorized by designers, authors, photographers, illustrators, typeface and more. Users can leave comments on each cover and suggest additions.

• For those who hate late fees: PaperBack Swap is a community hub that allows members to trade all types of books for free. When a member requests one of your books, mail it using the site’s exact-postage labels and then request one for yourself from the site’s five million-plus titles.

• For serious clubbers: Book Glutton is like an online book club, where users can actually read public domain books through the web.  The social community is also super interactive: users can not only chat with others, but also annotate, bookmark, and make comments directly into virtual books.

(Photograph by Onderwijsgek via Wikimedia Commons.)

Growing up, I was never a big fan of Phyllis Diller’s. I know this is a lousy way to begin a tribute, but it’s true. I’d seen her on talk shows and in a few bad Bob Hope movies, and something about her shtick just rubbed me the wrong way. She struck me as old Hollywood, the type who dined at Chasen’s on a Sunday evening, and I was already bored… Read More >>

I had just about gotten used to the term “doggie day care” as a euphemism for “kennel” when I read in the New York Postabout a full-service hotel for canines that's set to open in fashionable Chelsea. No crates and kibble here: At the D Pet Hotel, your pooch can enjoy a full-sized bed, flat-screen TV, “gourmet meals” prepared by a private chef, and a… Read More >>

Our Best of America Pinterest board began amidst the planning of our July/August We Hear You, America!package. As we sifted through thousands of heartfelt stories about what our readers love most about their hometowns, the board became a way for us to share the stories we wouldn't have room for in the magazine. Submissions ranged from the quirky—with six carousels Binghamton, New York… Read More >>

I know what you're thinking: already? But really, why wait? Take the destroy-after-reading site Burn Note, for example, in which users designate a termination date for emails and permanently erase them from the receiver's inbox; it's perfect for sending credit card information and unrequited love letters. Or the hilarious What Should We Call Me?blog that uses funny animated GIFs that… Read More >>

Remember when half the fun of buying new music was checking out the album cover art? If certain songs serve as the soundtrack of your life, surely cover art serves as a sort of flipbook of your past. Photographer Thom Moore recently paid homage to iconic album covers in a unique way on his Tumblr: He recreated the famous images with his socks. Bob Dylan's checkered… Read More >>

I'm not trying to lose weight for health reasons, but with my favorite jeans not quite buttoning,  I recently amped up my trips to the gym and cut back on my sugar splurges in hopes of slinking into them before I head to Heaven's Amphitheaterfor a Dave Matthews Band concert at the end of August. Alas, those increased efforts somehow led to a two-pound weight gain, so I cut my… Read More >>