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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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Goliath's curse : the history and future of societal collapse / by Kemp, Luke,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A radical retelling of human history through collapse -- from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twenty-first century and beyond. Why do civilisations collapse? Is human progress possible? Are we approaching our endgame? For the first 200,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change. As we reluctantly congregated in the first farms and cities, people began to rely on novel lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. And when more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organization. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires -- with vast bureaucracies and militaries -- carved up and dominated the globe. What brought them down? Whether in the early cities of Cahokia in North America or Tiwanaku in South America, or the sprawling empires of Egypt, Rome and China, it was increasing inequality and concentrations of power that hollowed these Goliaths out before an external shock brought them crashing down. These collapses were written up as apocalyptic, but in truth they were usually a blessing for most of the population. Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now face a choice -- we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last"--
Subjects: Civilization.; Regression (Civilization); Regression (Civilization); Social change.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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When the world didn't end : a memoir / by Turner, Guinevere,author.;
"In this immersive, spell-binding memoir, an acclaimed screenwriter tells the story of her childhood growing up with the infamous Lyman Family cult--and the complicated and unexpected pain of leaving the only home she'd ever known. On January 5, 1975, the world was supposed to end. Under strict instructions from the Family leader, seven-year-old Guinevere Turner put on her best dress, grabbed her favorite toy, and waited with the rest of her community for salvation--a spaceship that would take them to live on Venus. But the spaceship never came. Guinevere did not understand her family was a cult. She spent most of her days on a compound in Kansas, living with dozens of other children who worked in the sorghum fields and roved freely through the surrounding pastures, eating mulberries and tending to farm animals. But there was a dark side to this bucolic existence: When selected girls in her community turned twelve or thirteen, they were "given" to older men on the compound as wives in training. Turner was part of the Lyman Family, a cult spearheaded by Mel Lyman, a self-proclaimed world savior, committed to isolation from a world he declared had lost its way. When Guinevere caught the attention of Jessie, the woman everyone in the Family called the queen, her status was elevated and suddenly she was traveling in the inner-circle caravan between communities in Los Angeles, Boston, and Martha's Vineyard. Before long, Guinevere's world as she had known it ended. Her mother, from whom she had been separated since age three, left the Family with a disgraced member, and Guinevere and her four-year-old sister were forced to go with her. Traveling outside the bounds of her cloistered existence, Guinevere was thrust into public school for the first time, a stranger in a strange world with homemade clothes, clueless about social codes. Now, in the World she'd been raised to believe was evil, she faced challenges and horrors she couldn't have imagined. Drawing from the diaries that she kept throughout her youth, Guinevere Turner's memoir is an intimate and heart-wrenching chronicle of a childhood touched with extraordinary beauty and unfathomable ugliness, the ache of yearning to return to a lost home--and the slow realization of how harmful that place really was"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Turner, Guinevere.; Fort Hill Community (Organization); Ex-cultists;
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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Lola protesta / by Torres, Jennifer,1980-; Palacios, Sara.;
As Lola helps her mother at the family's hotel, she learns about compassion, social injustice, and how one voice can lead to change. Includes author's note on Dolores Huerta, a labor organizer who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association.
Subjects: Picture books.; Huerta, Dolores, 1930-; Mexican Americans; Social justice; Compassion;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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