Michael: I would recommend M.M. Graff's *Flowers in the Winter Garden*(Doubleday, 1966) which is very opinionated and special for me since I knew the author well during her 80's and 90's, during which time she shared a great many of her opinions, most of them a pleasure to hear. Since you garden in San Jose and she gardened at the time of her writing in Manhasset, Long Island there won't be a lot of overlap. Another book might be E.A. Bowles *A Handbook of Narcissus . *Bowles has already been mentioned. For strong opinions handily delivered you could do no better than Reginald Farrer, although I'm not aware of any of his books that deals exclusively with bulbs.* *Lola Horwitz in zone 7 Brooklyn, NY which feels and looks more like zone 5 * *