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The bird tattoo : a novel / by Mīkhāʼīl, Dunyā,1965-author.;
"Helen is a young Yazidi woman, living with her family in a mountain village in Sinjar, northern Iraq. One day she finds a local bird caught in a trap, and frees it, just as the trapper, Elias, returns. At first angry, he soon sees the error of his ways and vows never to keep a bird captive again. Helen and Elias fall deeply in love, marry and start a family in Sinjar. The village has seemed to stand apart from time, protected by the mountains and too small to attract much political notice. But their happy existence is suddenly shattered when Elias, a journalist, goes missing. A brutal organization is sweeping over the land, infiltrating even the remotest corners, its members cloaking their violence in religious devotion. Helen's search for her husband results in her own captivity and enslavement. She eventually escapes her captors and is reunited with some of her family. But her life is forever changed. Elias remains missing and her sons, now young recruits to the organization, are like strangers. Will she find harmony and happiness again?"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Captivity; Disappeared persons; Journalists; Man-woman relationships; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Bees : an identification and native plant forage guide / by Holm, Heather,1972-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.This well-illustrated guide captures the beauty, diversity, and engaging world of bees and the native plants that support them. Superbly designed and organized, this is an indispensable source of information with extensive profiles for twenty-seven bee genera, plus twelve mini profiles for uncommon genera, and approximately one hundred native trees, shrubs, and perennials for the Midwest, Great Lakes, and Northeast regions. With over 1500 stunning photographs, detailed descriptions, and accessible science, environmental educator and research assistant Heather Holm brings to light captivating information about bees' life cycles, habitats, diet, foraging behaviors, crops pollinated, nesting lifestyles, seasonality, and preferred native forage plants. Bees are a singularly fascinating group of insects and this book makes it possible to observe, attract, and support them in their natural setting or in one's own garden. Not only does this guide assist the reader with bee identification in the field or by photo, it also notes microscopic features for the advanced user. The factors impacting bee populations, and the management of farms and public and residential landscapes for bees are also covered. Included in the bee forage (plant) chapters are plant profiles with range maps, habitat information, floral features and attractants, common bees attracted to the particular plant, and details about the ecological connections between the native plant and other flower-visiting insects. Noted also are birds dependent upon the product of the pollinated flowers (fruits and seeds). This is an excellent reference for amateur and professional naturalists, educators, gardeners, farmers, students, nature photographers, insect enthusiasts, biologists, and anyone interested in learning more about the diversity and biology of bees and their connection to native plants and the natural world.
Subjects: Bees; Forage plants;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The truth about luck : what I learned on my road trip with Grandma / by Reid, Iain,1981-;
In the Truth about luck, Iain Reid, author of the highly popular coming-of-age memoir One bird's choice, accompanies his grandmother on a five-day vacation--which turns out to be a "staycation" at his basement apartment in Kingston. While the twenty-eight-year-old writer is at the beginning of his adult life, his ninety-two-year-old grandmother is nearing the end of hers. Between escorting his grandma to local attractions and restaurants, the two exchange memories and she begins to reveal details of her inspiring life story. Told with subtlety, humour, and heart, this delightful comic memoir reflects on family connections; how we experience adversity, the passage of time, and aging; and most importantly what it truly means to feel lucky.
Subjects: Reid, Iain, 1981-; Grandparent and child.; Authors, Canadian (English); Canadian wit and humor (English);
© c2013., Anansi,
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The last summer / by Swan, Karen(Writer),author.;
When the residents of St Kilda ask to be evacuated from their remote island home in the summer of 1930, it's in search of a better life on the mainland rather than the scratch existence on their mountain in the sea. For 18-year-old Effie Gillies, it's a bittersweet departure. She's the best young climber on the island, as skilled and brave as any of the men. But it is Effie's expansive knowledge of local bird life that leads her to taking up a position as curator of Dumfries House's ornithological collection - and back into the arms of Lord Dumfries' son and heir, Sholto. During her last summer on St Kilda, Effie had been Sholto's guide, and their attraction had seemed irresistible. But in the glamorous polite society of Ayrshire, it is clear they are worlds apart. When a body is discovered on the island, soon after the evacuation, a scandal erupts as she is implicated. Sholto knows she's keeping secrets - but are they even her own?
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Island life; Man-woman relationships; Ornithologists; Women mountaineers;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The marsh queen / by Hartman, Virginia,1959-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Loni Mae Murrow's life in Washington, DC is tidy, if a trifle constrained. Single and in her mid-thirties, she's a bird artist at the Smithsonian who spends her days at a desk, making elaborate drawings of belted kingfishers and scrub-jays and purple gallinules. Then she's abruptly summoned back home to the wetlands of northern Florida, where she grew up. Her mother, critical and difficult, has grown frail and been resentfully consigned to assisted living, and her younger brother, Phil, juggling a job and a wife and two young children, needs her help. Loni may not be her mother's only child, but there are some things only a daughter can do. Although Florida, with its suffocating heat and difficult memories, is a place she thought she'd managed to get away from, Loni soon discovers that home is not so easily forgotten. Going through her mother's things, she finds a cryptic note from a woman whose name she doesn't recognize: "There are some things I have to tell you about Boyd's death," it reads. Boyd is her father, a man who drowned in a boating accident out on the marsh when Loni was twelve and Phil just a baby. The circumstances of his death, long presumed a suicide, turn out to be murkier than anyone thought. Against her better judgment, Loni finds herself drawn into a quest to discover the truth about how he died. Against the mottled landscape of her youth, she is led both away from and toward the truth about the past and its betrayals. One by one, the forces keeping her in Florida become stronger. Someone begins to threaten her as she uncovers pieces of her father's story, but she can't figure out who. In the midst of this danger, she struggles to reconnect with her mother through the remnants of their past and to reconcile with her brother and his pushy, provincial wife. And she fights an attraction to a man who encourages her to stay in the South even as she determines to return to her job in Washington. At last moved to avenge the wrongs done to her family, Loni has to decide whether to join the violence or end it"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Domestic fiction.; Novels.; Artists; Families; Mothers and daughters; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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