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Planting for pollinators : creating a garden haven / by Angel, Heather,author,photographer.;
"Insect pollinators not only bring joy to our gardens, they also provide an essential service for our planet. Without bees, flies, hoverflies, butterflies, moths and beetles, some of our favourite foods, flowers and plants would cease to exist. Whether you have a large garden, an urban balcony or just a window box, planting to encourage pollinators is a fantastic and surprisingly easy first step in creating a wildlife-friendly space. Planting for Pollinators features a wide range of plants, with guidance on the best ways to nurture lawns and verges, pollinator predation and tips on watching and photographing wildlife. Beautifully illustrated throughout with images from award-winning wildlife photographer Heather Angel, this essential guide will show you how plants communicate with insects, and why it's so important to protect our pollinators. Organised by season and featuring more than 100 plant species - including bulbs, annuals, perennials, shrubs and climbers - this practical guide will help you to discover the short- and long-term benefits of having a variety of pollinators visit your garden."--Back cover.
Subjects: Bees.; Butterfly gardening.; Gardening to attract wildlife.; Insect pollinators; Pollinators.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Inflamed : deep medicine and the anatomy of injustice / by Marya, Rupa,1975-author.; Patel, Raj,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Our bodies, societies, and planet are inflamed. Boldly original, Inflamed takes us on a medical tour through the human body--our digestive, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems. Unlike a traditional anatomy book, this groundbreaking work illuminates the hidden relationships between our biological systems and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems. Inflammation is connected to the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the diversity of the microbes living inside us, which regulate everything from our brain's development to our immune system's functioning. It's connected to the number of traumatic events we experienced as children and to the traumas endured by our ancestors. It's connected not only to access to health care but to the very models of health that physicians practice"--Dust jacket flap.
Subjects: Discrimination in medical care.; Equality.; Health services accessibility.; Social medicine.; Social justice.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Rediscovering travel : a guide for the globally curious / by Kugel, Seth,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.In his insightful and fun book, Kugel, former New York Times "Frugal Traveler" columnist, takes on the increasingly commercial and technological aspects of 21st-century travel. His advice will stimulate travelers' curiosity while rescuing a sense of adventure that has been eclipsed by technology and corporate tourism. Kugel bemoans the spawning of neighborhoods that have become "cultural amusement parks" brought on by the exploding business of apartment rental services in cities around the globe. Kugel stresses the benefits of traveling inexpensively: more trips can be taken, and travelers will be closer to the everyday life and will have more opportunities for discovering intriguing people, tasty food, and exhilarating sites. He admits that technology and travel media have made traveling "easier, faster, and cheaper" but cautions against overuse of online resources such as hotel and restaurant reviews, Google Maps, and GPS ("Studies show that drivers using GPS to get somewhere don't pay attention to their surroundings and thus have more trouble finding their way back"). Although Kugel acknowledges that the travel industry will always be necessary "to transport people to their destinations," he believes that adventurous souls will have more luck finding inspiration, personalization, and self-discovery with "just a tiny push toward less-planned travel experiences." Kugel's advice for discovery-filled travel is thought-provoking and surprisingly simple.
Subjects: Kugel, Seth; Tourism.; Travel.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The fifth risk / by Lewis, Michael(Michael M.),author.;
"The election happened," remembers Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, then deputy secretary of the Department of Energy. "And then there was radio silence." Across all departments, similar stories were playing out: Trump appointees were few and far between; those that did show up were shockingly uninformed about the functions of their new workplace. Some even threw away the briefing books that had been prepared for them. Michael Lewis's brilliant narrative takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its own leaders. In Agriculture the funding of vital programs like food stamps and school lunches is being slashed. The Commerce Department may not have enough staff to conduct the 2020 Census properly. Over at Energy, where international nuclear risk is managed, it's not clear there will be enough inspectors to track and locate black market uranium before terrorists do. Willful ignorance plays a role in these looming disasters. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gains without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing those costs. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it's better never to really understand those problems. There is upside to ignorance, and downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview. If there are dangerous fools in this book, there are also heroes, unsung, of course. They are the linchpins of the system-those public servants whose knowledge, dedication, and proactivity keep the machinery running. Michael Lewis finds them, and he asks them what keeps them up at night.
Subjects: Administrative agencies; Government executives; Public administration; Civil service;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Finding Larkspur : a return to village life / by Needles, Dan,author.;
"Bestselling chronicler of village life Dan Needles (author of the Wingfield Farm stage plays) leads an insightful and laugh-out-loud tour through the quirks and customs of today's Canadian small town. Modern literature has not been kind to village life. For almost two centuries, small towns have been portrayed as backward, insular places needing to be escaped. But anthropologists tell us that the human species has spent more than 100,000 years living in villages of 100 to 150 people. This is where the oldest part of our brain, the limbic system, grew and adapted to become a very sophisticated instrument for reading other people's emotions and figuring out how we might cooperate to find food, shelter and protection. By comparison, the frontal cortex, which helps us do our taxes, drive a car and download cat videos, is a very recent aftermarket addition, like a sunroof. And it is the village where almost half the world's population still chooses to live. Finding Larkspur takes a walk through the Canadian village of the twenty-first century, observing customs and traditions that endure despite the best efforts of Twitter, Facebook and Amazon. The author looks at the buildings and organizations left over from the old rural community, why they were built in the first place and how they have adapted to the modern day. The post office, the general store, the church, the school and the service club all remain standing, but they operate quite differently than they did for our ancestors. Drawing from his experience working in rural communities across Canada and in other countries, Needles reveals how a national conversation may be driven by urban voices but the national character is often very much a product of its small towns and back roads."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Sociology, Rural; Villages; Villages;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The indomitable Florence Finch : the untold story of a war widow turned resistance fighter and savior of American POWs / by Mrazek, Robert J.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When Florence Finch died at the age of 101, few of her Ithaca, NY neighbors knew that this unassuming Filipina native was a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, whose courage and sacrifice were unsurpassed in the Pacific War against Japan. Long accustomed to keeping her secrets close in service of the Allies, she waited fifty years to reveal the story of those dramatic and harrowing days to her own children.Florence was an unlikely warrior. She relied on her own intelligence and fortitude to survive on her own from the age of seven, facing bigotry as a mixed-race mestiza with the dual heritage of her American serviceman father and Filipina mother. As the war drew ever closer to the Philippines, Florence fell in love with a dashing American naval intelligence agent, Charles "Bing" Smith. In the wake of Bing's sudden death in battle, Florence transformed from a mild-mannered young wife into a fervent resistance fighter. She conceived a bold plan to divert tons of precious fuel from the Japanese army, which was then sold on the black market to provide desperately needed medicine and food for hundreds of American POWs. In constant peril of arrest and execution, Florence fought to save others, even as the Japanese police closed in. With a wealth of original sources including taped interviews, personal journals, and unpublished memoirs, The Indomitable Florence Finch unfolds against the Bataan Death March, the fall of Corregidor, and the daily struggle to survive a brutal occupying force. Award-winning military historian and former Congressman Robert J. Mrazek brings to light this long-hidden American patriot. The Indomitable Florence Finch is the story of the transcendent bravery of a woman who belongs in America's pantheon of war heroes."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Finch, Florence Ebersole Smith, 1915-2017.; United States. Army. Forces, Far East; United States. Coast Guard. Women's Reserve; Prisoners of war; Prisoners of war; War widows; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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My stories, my times / by Chrétien, Jean,1934-author.; translation of:Chrétien, Jean,1934-Mes histoires.English.; Fischman, Sheila,translator.; Winkler, Donald,translator.;
"One of the most popular Canadian Prime Ministers in recent history, elected to government for three consecutive majority terms, Jean Chrétien has some stories to tell. Recounted with warmth, insight and his distinctive sense of humour, these brief and candid essays feature many behind-the-scenes stories from a long, distinguished and colourful career. October 2018 marks twenty-five years since Jean Chrétien took the helm as Prime Minister. In this collection of short essays, he has picked up his pen to reminisce about his long years in the public eye, and the many luminaries he met and worked with. Readers will learn why his commonsense judgment continues to influence our lives to this day, in ways both profound and subtle: from forging long-lasting relationships with foreign countries to making it easy to identify our national airline when we travel. He recalls a memorable trip with the royal family to the Northwest Territories in 1970, and how Ross Perot tried to influence his views on free trade in 1992. Of course, many familiar names figure into these stories, including George W. Bush, Boris Yeltsin, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Pierre Trudeau, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. There are reflections on the many different posts over Chrétien's career, including becoming Canada's first-ever francophone finance minister. He pays tribute to old friends and colleagues, where the values of honour and dedication to public service transcend political views. He reserves his greatest admiration for his wife of more than sixty years, Aline, whom he calls his Rock of Gibraltar. These stories offer his unique perspective: we are at the Prime Minister's side on 9/11 when he is asked to give authorization to shoot down a passenger airliner that has not responded to identification requests. We learn how he attempted to correct the record as explained in his grandson's history book on the so-called "Night of the Long Knives" (Despite having special access to an eyewitness to history, his grandson got a failing grade on his paper.) There are even glimpses of the young Jean, as a teen canvassing with his father, and as a young man who dared complain personally to Premier Maurice Duplessis about the food at his seminary. Survival in politics requires stamina, creativity and toughness, as well as the ability to share a laugh now and again: qualities that the self-described "little guy from Shawinigan" never lost. In these days of "alternative facts" and politics-by-Tweet, these stories are a necessary antidote, told by a leader who always held fast to his vision of what Canada was and what it could be."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Chrétien, Jean, 1934-; Prime ministers; Prime ministers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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15-minute Spanish : learn in just 12 weeks / by Bremón, Ana,author.; DK Publishing, Inc.;
"Teach yourself Spanish in just 12 weeks with this fun-filled language course. DK's 15 Minute Spanish is the perfect course for busy people who want to learn Spanish fast. The 12 themed chapters are broken down into easy-to-follow 15-minute daily lessons spanning a range of practical themes, including: leisure, business, food and drink, travel, and shopping. Each lesson combines vocabulary and grammar essentials with attractive full-color images, making it quick, easy, and fun to learn new Spanish vocabulary. There is no writing or homework--you simply use the cover flaps to hide the answers to exercises and test yourself as you learn. Each chapter ends with a review module, so you can track your progress and identify areas where you need further practice. Fancy becoming a pro at the language? Then get stuck in to discover: Annotated photographic scenes and word lists make it easy to learn and remember new vocabulary; 12 fun chapters, each designed to take a week to master, providing an easy-to-follow structure for new learners; Easy-to-use pronunciation guide for every word, plus a dictionary and menu guide at the back of the book; Regular review modules to help you track progress and assess how well you have learned the vocabulary in each chapter. The course includes a free audio app that lets you to hear Spanish words and phrases spoken by native speakers. Use the app alongside the book's easy-to-use pronunciation guides to perfect your pronunciation and practise Spanish conversation in real-life situations. Whether you're a complete beginner or just in need of a refresher course, there's no easier way to learn Spanish than with 15 Minute Spanish."--
Subjects: Programmed instructional materials.; Spanish language; Spanish language; Spanish language; Spanish language;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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