BEAUTY FROM A COUNTRY GARDEN <i> Written and illustrated by Catherine Kanner (Ten Speed Press: $15.95; 69 pp.). </i>

This is real girl stuff. Get all the guys out of the house, put on your pearls, brew some tea and curl up with this pretty little book on a quiet afternoon. You won’t regret it. Artist Catherine Kanner has collected lore, recipes and gardening advice in a brief, personal text enhanced by her delicate illustrations of herbs, fruit and flowers. She offers home remedies and recipes for tonics, astringents, washes, creams and shampoos for the face, eyes, lips and hair, hands and feet. On a single page she provides all the information you need to start your own herb garden outside--or in pots, window boxes or hanging baskets. She reveals the secrets of drying herbs and flowers to make your own potpourri, sachets and bath treats. The essense of Kanner’s meditative book is that gardens and garden products provide more than beauty but the key to physical and mental health in this high-tech, fast-paced, over-developed world. If you don’t have a garden or pots with plants at home, health-food stores, florists, nurseries, candle and bed-and-bath shops will have all the supplies and ingredients you’ll need to follow Kanner’s wonderfully old-fashioned--and easy--recipes.