My initial (and persistent) delight with Kathy Crump's book, Rambling Through my Garden of Fiber and Dye Plants, lies in its ingenious structure and arrangement of material. A brushed-gold, tied wrap-around protects the book itself, which has two stiff covers, made from board covered with the author's papers�combinations of asparagus, abaca, and cotton rag. The covers (about 7" high and 5" wide) are connected on each side by short accordion folds (2" high). To these are attached the pages, alternating text, on Rives buff heavyweight, and paper samples (eleven in all). As the pages are attached only at the bottom, like the covers, the reader has maximum access to the paper samples; they can easily be moved and handled, rattled, and even smelled, up close.   The book can be read, viewed, or displayed in multiple ways: with the covers side-by-side laid flat on a surface, the near-side accordion arching up between them; with the covers laid flat, bottom-to-bottom, the pages fanning out and up from the base; or with the covers standing spread apart, the accordions holding the structure upright and the pages aligned serially in between. I also found the book could be held with the covers at right angles (at the bottom), which allowed me to pull the pages toward me, one by one, as I viewed or read them. I enjoyed playing with and studying the book's structure for several minutes even before I delved into its contents. In particular, the samples, the central purpose of the book, are well presented and highlighted by the format.   The book can be read and looked at starting from either cover, each of which has the title and author's name on them (there are also two title pages and two colophons). Viewed from one end, the reader sees the papers, identified simply, and an occasional screen print showing the plants used to make them (either the fiber or the dye). From the other direction, one finds a little story about each paper, how it came to be, what the artist was doing when she harvested the fiber, or what wildlife she was observing at the time. All of these brief texts are relaxed in tone; some resonate with larger truths.   The author chose a quirky typeface�Byronprint, designed by Byron Wolfe�but it does not overly distract for text of this length. (It would be dizzying in a longer work, with its mix of upper and lower cases, dropped "t"s and almost imperceptible punctuation.) Like the plant images, all of the text is screen printed.   All of the handmade papers are well made. Some are crisp and thin (silk tree and day lily papers), others rich and textured (abaca fiber paper with banana blossom), and one or two just playful (abaca fiber with rose and peony inclusions). The artist extracts subtle colors from olives, bronze fennel, black walnut, and sage dyes, used with abaca, abaca and cotton, or flax fibers. The most unusual paper has bits of portobello mushroom (which the artist admits did not come from her garden) floating in an abaca sheet.   Crump identifies the essentials of her papers without overwhelming the reader with details. She does not give beating times or cooking methods for all of the fibers, but this is not that kind of sample book. Instead, she keeps the focus appropriately on her garden and the papers inspired by it.