Like what, you ask? Here are just a few extraordinary examples: * Bats always turn left when they exit a cave.* In the 1960s, astronauts trained for moon voyages by walking on Hawaiian lava fields.* Lloyd's of London insured Bruce Springsteen's voice for 3.5 million English pounds.* Physician Amynthas of Alexandria, Greece, performed the first known nose job in the Third Century B.C.* Military toilet paper is printed in a camouflage design, since white could attract enemy fire.* Elvis Presley always wore a helmet when watching football on TV.* King Henry VIII's ladies at court had a ration of one gallon of beer per day.* It takes the energy from 50 leaves on an apple tree to produce one ripe fruit.* The only country to host the Summer Olympics but not win a sinlge gold medal was Canada, in 1976. And that's just the beginning! So what are you waiting for? Attack!

    Celebrating the year in music writing by gathering a rich array of essays, missives, and musings on every style of music from rock to hip-hop to R&B to jazz to pop to blues, it is essential reading for anyone who loves great music and accomplished writing. Scribes of every imaginable sort—novelists, poets, journalists, musicians— are gathered to create a multi-voiced snapshot of the year in music writing that, like the music it illuminates, is every bit as thrilling as it is riveting.

    New plants, techniques, materials, and lifestyles are constantly broadening the choices you have and reshaping the way you garden in the West. In response to this natural evolution, the editors of Sunset-the West's most trusted source of gardening information for more than 80 years-have completely redesigned and updated The Western Garden Book in this new 2012 Ninth Edition. Following the best-selling success of the previous editions of The Western Garden Book, this edition includes a fresh new look, thousands of color photographs, fresh illustrations, and an easy-to-follow format. Written by experts for gardeners in the West, this book is an indispensable reference for beginning and expert gardeners alike.The New Western Garden Book features include:A photo gallery shows the West's most innovative gardens, from all-edibles front yards to stylish water-wise and fire-wise gardens to living walls and green roofs-all with ideas you can use.Climate Zone Maps and growing-season graphs for all regions of the West including Alaska and Hawaii.A new "Plant Finder" section helps you choose plants for their garden's problem areas or for special effects."A to Z Plant Encyclopedia" lists some 8,000 plants that thrive in the West, including more than 500 new ones. Gorgeous color photographs illustrate all plant entries-for the first time ever in The Western Garden Book."Gardening From Start to Finish" is a new visual guide that leads readers through all steps of making a garden, from soil prep through planting, growing and care, with special sections on natives, veggies, grasses and more.

    Eaten alone, as a salad, or added to soups, entrees, sandwiches, burgers, or anything else, these tiny greens of nutrition will enhance everyday food and life!Only a small amount of space is needed to grow microgreens—a porch, patio, deck, or balcony, indoors or outdoors, will do. This allows anyone to easily incorporate microgreens into their daily meals, and the greens' nutritional potency make them a must-eat in a healthy diet, any time of the year!

    She’s since returned to the United States, but this distillation of incisive—and irreverent—insights, now updated with a new preface, is just as illuminating today. And perhaps even more so, in the wake of Brexit and the attendant national identity crisis.While there may be no easy answer to the question of how, exactly, to understand the English, The Anglo Files—part anthropological field study, part memoir—helps point the way.

    You’ll learn the basics of photosynthesis, the science of light, how to accurately measure how much light a plant needs, and details about the most up-to-date tools and gear available. Also included are tips and techniques for helping ornamental plants (like orchids, succulents, bonsai, and more) and edible plants (arugula, cannabis, oregano, tomatoes, and more) thrive indoors. Whether you are a vegetable gardener who wants to extend the growing season, a balcony gardener short on outdoor space, or a specialty plant collector, Gardening Under Lights is a must-have.

    Known for its balanced coverage of the 3 perspectives, this text continues to encourage students to think about their world with a sociological imagination. Through its strong coverage of globalization, race and ethnicity, careers in sociology, and current topics like mass media and social policy, Sociology provides students with knowledge they can use on campus, at work, in their neighborhoods, and in the global community. The new 12th edition features updated sections in various chapters reflecting recent sociological changes like the impact of the current economic downturn on social class and the global culture war. New Research Today boxes provide students with relevant examples of sociological research.

    The time has come to look for new ways to create friendly, livable spaces around our homes. In The American Meadow Garden, ornamental grass expert John Greenlee creates a new model for homeowners and gardeners. For Greenlee, a meadow isn't a random assortment of messy, anonymous grasses. Rather, it is a shimmering mini-ecosystem, in which regionally appropriate grasses combine with colorful perennials to form a rich tapestry that is friendly to all life — with minimal input of water, time, and other scarce resources. Kids and pets can play in complete safety, and birds and butterflies flock there. A prairie style planting is a place you want to be. With decades of experience as a nurseryman and designer, John Greenlee is the perfect guide. He details all the practicalities of site preparation, plant selection, and maintenance; particularly valuable are his explanations of how ornamental grasses perform in different climates and areas. Gorgeous photography by Saxon Holt visually illustrates the message with stunning examples of meadow gardens from across the country. We've reached a stage where we can no longer follow past practices unthinkingly, particularly when those practices are wasteful and harmful to the environment. It's time to get rid of the old-fashioned lawn and embrace a sane and healthy future: the American meadow garden.

    Very rich and providing great sensory pleasure (Oxford English Dictionary)n. A habitual drunkard (Oxford English Dictionary)'Arms linked, just as we did when we were seventeen, we teeter our way to the club, pausing to tug Emma's stiletto out of a drain cover and sling our empty wine bottle into the bin. For the first time in a long while I feel truly happy. I want to be standing arm-in-arm with my best friend, both completely pole-axed, for the rest of my days. And then it comes to me, with a stab: this is possibly our last night out together as free women...'Gabby and Emma have been best friends since primary school in Wales. Emma has a stable job, a nice home and has just got engaged. Gabby has had a succession of disastrous one-night-stands and five awful jobs since drama school . . . and she has just been diagnosed with scurvy. She has one year until the wedding to pull herself together and prove to her friends and family that she can be a proper grown-up.Described by Caitlin Moran as 'filthy, immoral and incredibly funny', Gabrielle Fernie's blog, loveisa4letterturd.com, catalogued her life as a struggling actress with a taste for gin. Here, in her first book, she shares more of her most raucous stories with eye-watering honesty. It is a refreshing, frank and laugh-out-loud account of a young woman trying to find her place in the world; ultimately realising that it's fine to play at being an adult until she properly figures it out.

    Delight and enrichment come with the learning of new skills, being close to family and old friends, long companionable beach walks, rediscovering old recipes, food and wine.Wise and joyful, accepting what she cannot change while relishing what she has, Kate shares the beauties and frailties of the human condition and shows us what the gifts of ageing can bring.

    With the turn of each page, Liz Fourez leads you on a tour through her family’s house, restored to its 1940s rustic farm style, and teaches you how to make each handmade decoration yourself. The projects require minimal effort, yet add instant charm to any room. With your blue jeans on and a few of the most basic supplies in hand, you’ll be on your way to your dream home in no time.You’ll learn how to make a custom wood Family Name Sign for your living room, a Wooden Boot Tray on Casters for the entryway, a Ruffled Stool Slipcover for the kitchen and a Rustic Wooden Frame for the bedroom, plus decorations for the office, bathroom, kids’ bedroom and playroom. Farmhouse style is about cultivating a connection among family, home and nature; A Touch of Farmhouse Charm helps you bring the warmth and beauty of simpler times to your modern life naturally.

    Since its first broadcast in the 1920s it has inspired poems, songs and novels in addition to its intended objective of warning generations of seafarers of impending storms and gales. Sitting at home listening to the shipping forecast can be a cosily reassuring experience. There's no danger of a westerly gale eight, veering southwesterly increasing nine later (visibility poor) gusting through your average suburban living room, blowing the Sunday papers all over the place and startling the cat. Yet familiar though the sea areas are by name, few people give much thought to where they are or what they contain. In ATTENTION ALL SHIPPING Charlie Connelly wittily explores the places behind the voice, those mysterious regions whose names seem often to bear no relation to conventional geography. Armchair travel will never be the same again.

    And he’s never stopped studying, because he wants to give the best, most up-to-date information to the listeners of his nationally-syndicated Public Radio show, “You Bet Your Garden.” He offers the fruits of his labors in this illustrated guide that reveals why compost is the answer to virtually every garden question. McGrath explains why compost improves soil structure; why it provides the perfect amount of food for every plant; how it fights plant diseases more safely and effectively than any chemical fungicide; and how to make your own. This is a must-have on every gardener’s bookshelf!

    Welcome to the straw bale house! Whether you build an entire house or something more modest-a home office or studio, a retreat cabin or guest cottage-plastered straw bale construction is an exceptionally durable and inexpensive option. What's more, it's fun, because the technique is easy to learn and easy to do yourself. And the resulting living spaces are unusually quiet and comfortable.The Straw Bale Housedescribes the many benefits of building with straw bales:super insulation, with R-values as high as R-50 good indoor air quality and noise reduction a speedy construction process construction costs as low as $10-per-square-foot use of natural and abundant renewable resources a better solution than burning agricultural waste straw, which creates tons of air pollutants

    She puts the English national character under her anthropological microscope, and finds a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and byzantine codes of behaviour. The rules of weather-speak. The ironic-gnome rule. The reflex apology rule. The paranoid-pantomime rule. Class indicators and class anxiety tests. The money-talk taboo and many more ...Through a mixture of anthropological analysis and her own unorthodox experiments (using herself as a reluctant guinea-pig), Kate Fox discovers what these unwritten behaviour codes tell us about Englishness.