Cincinnati writer Dale Patrick Brown says, in her lively new book Literary Cincinnati, the city “can point to an impressive literary history, but rarely does.” Brown proceeds to remedy the situation with eminently readable accounts of literary figures, homegrown and visiting.  

Although gardeners have always been drawn to the exotic, the authors of this book encourage exactly the opposite approach and eye non-native plants as encroachers. As gardeners themselves, this husband and wife team has transformed their own grounds from a traditional mixture of naturalized and native plants to one that harbors only natives to the benefit of birds, butterflies, bees and other life.  

 Not enough circus in your life? Head for Circus Mojo where Dante’s Gypsy Circus and the Accidental Circus come together for an evening described as “Darwinism in Action & Luscious Cabare  

When Basil Balian was growing up in Iraq, everybody was reading a series of 19th century over-the-top stories of dark deeds and derring-do by a French writer, Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail. Rocambole, the unlikely hero of these tales, moves from bad guy to good guy in the course of numerous books charting his story.   

Potters and pottery-buyers alike look forward to this annual event, and this year kids can enjoy it, too. A hands-on arts station will give them the chance to do their own thing with clay. DeSales Cor  

If you are an orderly person, your first stop on descending the stairs to see the current installations in the Weston Art Gallery’s lower rooms will be the tiny viewing area just to the right of the staircase. There, Clara Crockett’s “Theatre Lilliputiens,” five brief films with a total running time of 20 minutes, prepare us for the world of her small, meticulous drawings.  

What happens when a photographer takes black and white pictures in a painter's garden? William Messer's 20-year, off-and-on project in Monet's garden at Giverny presents his own vision of a plac  

Photography shows in cafes can be chancy as to quality and depth. Those at Iris BookCafe and Gallery, curated by William Messer, regularly break this rule. Messer, in exhibitions presented quarterly at Iris since fall 2008, is himself an experienced curator with an international background and a photographer in his own right.  

At Manifest Creative Research Gallery, ideas for exhibitions are almost an intellectual art form on their own. The little “neighborhood gallery for the world” in East Walnut Hills has a history of dreaming up surprising themes.  

Pompeii is the disaster-grabber of all time. How old were you when that terrible story first drew you in? I was 8, I think, and Pompeii still grips my imagination. For all of us who can’t shake this fascination, A Day in Pompeii, now at Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, is a must.