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New Hampshire’s Lottery loses some of its own customers where it competes head to head with the Massachusetts lottery.

This only adds pressure to the state’s effort to try and raise more money from the games.

But luring customers back to New Hampshire may be a very difficult way to raise more cash.

New Hampshire Public Radio’s David Darman has more.

Writer and voracious reader Matthew Battles joins Word of Mouth once more to share some of the best new books coming out of university presses. He's senior editor at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the author of "Library: An Unquiet History."

The books he picked last month centered on the theme of crime, punishment and torture. It was a pretty dark conversation during the dark month of March. But now that it's April, Matthew is back to talk about books with a much sunnier theme – gardening.

Here are Matthew's April picks:

The Flower Hunters by Mary Gribbin and John Gribbin
(Oxford University Press)

"The Gribbins tell the stories of eleven globetrotting botanists of times past, explorers like Joseph Banks and Robert Fortune who brought flowers to our gardens and tea to our table. The Gribbins don't pay enough attention to the sometimes-troubling role these figures played in the history of colonialism. But the stories they tell here do make for fascinating reading."


Gods and Goddesses in the Garden: Greco-Roman Mythology and the Scientific Names of Plants by Peter Bernhardt
(Rutgers University Press)

"Bernhardt takes up where the Gribbins left off to consider the mythological origins of the scientific names botanists have given the plants of the world. In some cases, these names tenderly evoke the plant lore of the ancient world; in other cases, they show how scientists have tried to elevate their subjects by choosing classical citations over tradition's often-saucy monikers."


Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition by Robert Pogue Harrison
(University of Chicago Press)

"Harrison is a cultural historian alive to the poetry of science as well as insights poetry offers to the natural history of humankind. In Gardens, he explores the meanings of gardening, from the lofty height of Homer and the Bible to the poignant plots tended by homeless people in New York. Our fascination with gardens endures, even as the gardens themselves come and go with the seasons. They're not meant to last, Harrison reminds us; it's their job to 'reenchant the present.'"

Research on cigarette addiction has long held that it takes years to develop the nicotine habit. But new research indicates that the symptoms of addiction - withdrawal, cravings, and failed attempts at quitting - can appear within the first week of smoking. That's even more cause for tobacco-prevention programs to keep kids from picking up the habit in the first place.

Here in New Hampshire, 20.5 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes. Last year, the state ranked dead last in the country for spending on tobacco prevention programs, with zero dollars spent on prevention, and it looks like New Hampshire will earn that dubious distinction again this year due to budget constraints. It's alarming, given that some scientists have found evidence of changes in the brain of novice smokers after just one dose of nicotine.

Word of Mouth host Virginia Prescott spoke about the research with John Rennie, editor-in-chief of Scientific American, which published the new findings in its May issue.

Read a preview of the Scientific American article "Hooked from the First Cigarette"

(Photo by Juan Jackson)