Monsters do not lie under your bed. Monster do not live in closets. They go to church. They go to school. Some teach in schools. Some are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. My monster was the married mother who lived two doors down. She moved in as the housekeeper and later became my father’s wife. I was starved, beaten and held captive on our property, but after eight years of torture, I survived the monster. When a story, like mine, hits the news, most of us ask the same questions: Why? How? Why would a child, attending school, endure eight years of cruel torture and starvation, yet not run for help? Why did my twenty-one year old brother not move out earlier or call the police? Why didn’t the six of us gang up on her? To understand the answer to these and many other questions, you have to live the abusive lives we lived. You may ask what fuels a monster. Greed, jealousy and control are three big factors. According to recent NCANDS data the majority of the perpetrators, half a century later, are still women. So how could my father, not mutually engaged in the systematic sadistic torture of his children, allow it to happen on a regular basis? That answer is simple. Somewhere back in time, my father lost his spine.

    Hailed by The New York Times as a poet of farming, Slow Food activist Masumoto weaves together stories of family and farming, life and death, to reveal age-old wisdom that is fast disappearing--and urgently needed.

    It is not a novel; instead, it is a rallying cry and a battle plan for constitutional conservatives who feel outnumbered and outgunned by a liberal establishment that wants to make them extinct and Republican moderates who are more than happy to lose if it means they keep getting invitations to all the right parties. Conservative Insurgency lays out the history of this struggle from the point of view of various participants as America inaugurates a new president and fully re-commits to the conservative vision of the Founders. The testimonies of the characters – politicians, academics, activist, soldiers and even a gender-indefinite performance artist who finds that liberalism is more constraining than conservatism ever could be – describe a multi-front, long-term political, social, and cultural war designed to seize society’s high ground in order to restore the Founders’ vision. It is not a war of violence but one of persuasion and action. The weapons are not arms but arguments – though the transition is not entirely peaceful as progressives refuse to honor basic rights when it means they must give up power. Why an insurgency? Because conservatives won’t win a stand up fight today – the enemy is too powerful, and to do so risks allowing them to destroy us forever in detail. Military history provides many useful analogies for this peaceful struggle. Remember the Vietnamese insurgents during Tet in 1968? They came out of the jungles during that holiday season in an attempt to take over the South in one fell swoop. They were annihilated, despite the best efforts of a liberal United States media to portray it to the contrary. They simply made their move far too soon. They went back underground and, seven years later, they took Saigon. How does a force that is always “losing” end up winning? That’s the key question, and one the oral histories of the 30+ characters answers. Author Kurt Schlichter is uniquely suited to write this book. A Townhall,com featured columnist and conservative media commentator, he was personally recruited by Andrew Breitbart to write for the conservative legend’s “Big” websites. Kurt has a large Twitter following and four consecutive Amazon kindle bestselling “Political Humor” e-books, but he is also a trial lawyer who served in the Army infantry from Operation Desert Storm to Operation Enduring Freedom in Kosovo. His background, including a masters of strategic studies from the United States Army War College, give him a unique perspective on politics, government and the strategy and tactics of an insurgent movement. His work as a stand-up comic helps give this serious subject a humorous edge. Conservative Insurgency shows how we need to engage the enemy everywhere – politics, the media, the law, academia and, as Andrew Breitbart taught us, popular culture. From the faculty lounge to the news room to the recording studio to the boardroom, we will never again simply write-off anywhere in our society to the progressives. There can be no safe havens for those who reject the basic freedoms our Founders enshrined in the Constitution. Conservative Insurgency is not about losing gloriously but about winning gloriously. Through the experiences of its many vivid characters, it lays out some general concepts and ideas about how to do it. They say the Tea Party is dead. Nonsense. We’re still here. We’re still ready to fight. And we’re going to fight, each in our own way, and take America back.

    The growing realization that he was gay coupled with his parents' use of religion to justify abuse and neglect led Dennis to have a very complicated relationship with love, God, and organized religion. After suffering a violent hate crime, forced institutionalization, and heartbreak after heartbreak, Dennis was desperate for love and acceptance--he just didn't know where to find it. Walk a mile in Dennis's shoes and see from his eyes how the only love that can truly make you whole is that of the Savior.

    Even if you've killed every house plant in the past, plant-cultivator and stylist Jason Chongue will show you that it's really not that difficult. Covering everything from basic plant care and re-potting, to plants suited to pets and propagating, this book will help remove your fear of gardening and inspire you to create you own indoor oasis. It includes profiles of 25 ideal tropical indoor plants, organised from the most low-maintenance species through to the more exotic and labor-intensive plants. On top of this, the book offers styling advice including how to decorate different rooms in your home with plants, as well as suggestions on pots and planters to give your plants more personality. Throughout the book, you'll also find interviews with 'Plant People' from around the world, who provide an insight into their unique relationships with house plants. Indoor gardening really is this simple and fun!

    The Pollinator Victory Garden offers practical solutions for winning the war against the demise of these essential animals. Pollinators are critical to our food supply and responsible for the pollination of the vast majority of all flowering plants on our planet. Pollinators include not just bees, but many different types of animals, including insects and mammals. Beetles, bats, birds, butterflies, moths, flies, and wasps can be pollinators. But, many pollinators are in trouble, and the reality is that most of our landscapes have little to offer them. Our residential and commercial landscapes are filled with vast green pollinator deserts, better known as lawns. These monotonous green expanses are ecological wastelands for bees and other pollinators. With The Pollinator Victory Garden, you can give pollinators a fighting chance. Learn how to transition your landscape into a pollinator haven by creating a habitat that includes pollinator nutrition, larval host plants for butterflies and moths, and areas for egg laying, nesting, sheltering, overwintering, resting, and warming. Find a wealth of information to support pollinators while improving the environment around you:  •  The importance of pollinators and the specific threats to their survival•  How to provide food for pollinators using native perennials, trees, and shrubs that bloom in succession•  Detailed profiles of the major pollinator types and how to attract and support each one•  Tips for creating and growing a Pollinator Victory Garden, including site assessment, planning, and planting goals•  Project ideas like pollinator islands, enriched landscape edges, revamped foundation plantings, meadowscapes, and other pollinator-friendly lawn alternatives  The time is right for a new gardening movement. Every yard, community garden, rooftop, porch, patio, commercial, and municipal landscape can help to win the war against pollinator decline with The Pollinator Victory Garden.

    But inevitably they’re already on the way out the door (and into the trash) by the time they arrive. Plants—living, breathing, life-sustaining plants—are where it’s at! Authors Lauren Camilleri and Sophia Kaplan really want you to love indoor gardening and growing as much as they do. Leaf Supply profiles and provides comprehensive (but easy to follow) care instructions for 100 houseplants—including tropical plants, palms, hanging plants, succulents, cacti, and more unusual varieties such as air plants and carnivorous plants—ensuring you learn and grow as your plant grows.But much more than a plant guide, Leaf Supply also gives interior styling advice on choosing the right pots for your plants—both aesthetically and practically—as well as best utilizing your space, making the most of your indoor greenery, plus advice on pet-friendly (as well as harmful) plants for your home. This is a comprehensive guide for any budding green thumb interested in greening their apartment or inside their home.

    This has cut down her expenditure of hard work and has given her excellent fruit, vegetables and flowers...a new method of mulch gardening.

    You need this book. Give plants a chance.Help your plant live with survival tips and learn the simple ways not to kill your plants.With over 50 different types of popular houseplants, How Not to Kill Your Houseplant summarizes what type of care your plants do (or don't) need. Be on the lookout for warning signs of a sick plant, from brown spots to crispy leaves, and make sure you take the proper action to rescue your plant.Learn the basics of horticulture, from watering your plant to what kind of soil it should be placed in to how much light it needs every day to if a certain type of plant will thrive in your living space. Find out how to keep a cactus alive, where to hang air plants, and how to repot succulents.Full of helpful tips, pictures, and informational panels, How Not to Kill Your Houseplant will turn your home into a beautiful greenhouse of healthy, happy plants.

    Monthly planting guides show exactly what you can do in the garden from January through December. The skill sets go beyond the basics with tutorials on seed saving, worm bins, and more. This must-have book is for gardeners in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

    This book provides a beautiful overview of the diversity that succulents have to offer, presenting a wide variety of popular plants to help you create striking, aesthetically pleasing compositions.This succulent guide includes information about: What each variety needs and where it thrivesPlant characteristics, with ratings on ease of growth and maintenance requirementsIdeas for group plantings and illustrated tips on indoor plantingStriking identification photos, rich in color and contrastThis succulent encyclopedia is a useful resource for everyone--from cacti beginners looking to decorate their living space to serious gardeners hoping to expand their succulent plantings.

    Charlotte Mendelson is perhaps unusually passionate about it. For despite her superficially normal existence, despite the fact that she has only six square metres of grotty urban soil and a few pots, she has a secret life. She is an extreme gardener, an obsessive, an addict. And like all addicts, she wants to spread the joy. Her garden may look like a nasty drunk old man's mini-allotment, chaotic, virtually flowerless, with weird recycling and nowhere to sit. When honoured friends are shown it, they tend to laugh. However, it is actually a tiny jungle, a minuscule farm, a wildly uneconomical experiment in intensive edible cultivation, on which she grows a taste of perhaps a hundred kinds of delicious fruits and odd vegetables. It is a source of infinite happiness and deep peace. It looks completely bonkers. Arguably, it's the most expensive, time-consuming, undecorative and self-indulgent way to grow a salad ever invented, but when tired or sad or cross it never fails to delight.

    Completely redesigned and updated for the first time in 10 years, the new edition features over 1,700 beautiful color photographs and over 7,000 featured plants. Enhanced features include a monthly garden checklist, a Q&A section to tackle everyday problems, and garden design solutions, plus industry experts provide the hottest trends and tips combined with old-fashioned wisdom. From the new homeowner just starting out in gardening to the Master Class gardener, this book will be an essential resource.

    Going back to the beginnings of human history, Mabey shows how flowers, trees, and plants have been central to human experience not just as sources of food and medicine but as objects of worship, actors in creation myths, and symbols of war and peace, life and death.Writing in a celebrated style that the Economist calls “delightful and casually learned,” Mabey takes readers from the Himalayas to Madagascar to the Amazon to our own backyards. He ranges through the work of writers, artists, and scientists such as da Vinci, Keats, Darwin, and van Gogh and across nearly 40,000 years of human history: Ice Age images of plant life in ancient cave art and the earliest representations of the Garden of Eden; Newton’s apple and gravity, Priestley’s sprig of mint and photosynthesis, and Wordsworth’s daffodils; the history of cultivated plants such as maize, ginseng, and cotton; and the ways the sturdy oak became the symbol of British nationhood and the giant sequoia came to epitomize the spirit of America.Complemented by dozens of full-color illustrations, The Cabaret of Plants is the magnum opus of a great naturalist and an extraordinary exploration of the deeply interwined history of humans and the natural world.

    Written with Barnard’s cooperation and with input from dozens of associates, drivers and rivals, this biography tells the entire story, both personal and professional, of a British design genius. Barnard’s technical achievements are explored in detail — and in accessible language — with special emphasis on his brilliant initiatives while at McLaren (the first carbon-fibre composite chassis) and Ferrari (the first semi-automatic gearbox). The Perfect Car is also a human-interest story, telling a tale of innovation under intense pressure while Barnard endeavoured to maintain a stable family life. This is a landmark book that will be relished by anyone interested in motorsport and design.