Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community


Heather Flores - 2006
    Creativity, fulfillment, connection, revolution--it all begins when we get our hands in the dirt.Food Not Lawns combines practical wisdom on ecological design and community-building with a fresh, green perspective on an age-old subject. Activist and urban gardener Heather Flores shares her nine-step permaculture design to help farmsteaders and city dwellers alike build fertile soil, promote biodiversity, and increase natural habitat in their own "paradise gardens."But Food Not Lawns doesn't begin and end in the seed bed. This joyful permaculture lifestyle manual inspires readers to apply the principles of the paradise garden--simplicity, resourcefulness, creativity, mindfulness, and community--to all aspects of life. Plant "guerilla gardens" in barren intersections and medians; organize community meals; start a street theater troupe or host a local art swap; free your kitchen from refrigeration and enjoy truly fresh, nourishing foods from your own plot of land; work with children to create garden play spaces.Flores cares passionately about the damaged state of our environment and the ills of our throwaway society. In Food Not Lawns, she shows us how to reclaim the earth one garden at a time.

Perfect Trust


Charles R. Swindoll - 2000
    With his unique, uplifting writing style, Swindoll helps those navigating life's most difficult obstacles to pursue the path that leads to power, blessing, and peace.

The Elements of Scrum


Chris Sims - 2011
    Written by Chris Sims, a top scrum trainer and pioneer of experiential learning, and Hillary Louise Johnson, a novelist and business journalist, it demonstrates the principles, practices and pitfalls of the scrum framework through lively storytelling and vividly told example.The Elements of Scrum opens with a blow-by-blow description of a week in the life of a scrum team, then briefly details the history and origins of scrum, comparing it to traditional methodologies and providing context for how scrum applies to the cultural history of the software industry. Next, the principles and practices set forth in the Agile Manifesto are broken down and illustrated with real-world examples, putting the reader inside the heads of the founders of scrum and agile for a thorough grounding in theory.The meat of the book explains every aspect of the scrum process, including team composition, scheduling and work flow management, in crisp, clear, example-laden prose designed to provide insight to novices and experienced practitioners alike.The book concludes with a section on supporting technical practices like Test Driven Development and Pair Programming, to help the reader apply scrum at the practical level.The Elements of Scrum is taught at colleges and universities across the country, including UCLA, George Mason University, Arizona State, SUNY Potsdam, Wofford College, and Becker College. It has been translated into Mandarin, and is soon to appear in other international editions.

The American Story: The Beginnings


David Barton