"A Rich Spot of Earth"

Author: Peter J. Hatch
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2012-04-24
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0300171145

Featuring more than 150 stunning full-color illustrations, this volume traces the history of Jefferson's unique vegetable garden, which has been painstakingly restored by the author, from the artichokes and asparagus first planted in 1770 through the horticultural experiments of Jefferson's retirement years.

The Best Place on Earth

The Best Place on Earth
Author: Ayelet Tsabari
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2016-03-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0812988949

Reminiscent of the early work of Jhumpa Lahiri, Ayelet Tsabari’s award-winning debut collection of stories is global in scope yet intimate in feel, beautifully written, and emotionally powerful. From Israel to India to Canada, Tsabari’s indelible characters grapple with love, violence, faith, the slipperiness of identity, and the challenges of balancing old traditions with modern times. These eleven spellbinding stories often focus on Israel’s Mizrahi Jews, featuring mothers and children, soldiers and bohemians, lovers and best friends, all searching for their place in the world. In “Tikkun,” a man crosses paths with his free-spirited ex-girlfriend—now a married Orthodox Jew—and minutes later barely escapes tragedy. In “Brit Milah,” a mother travels from Israel to visit her daughter in Canada and is stunned by her grandson’s upbringing. A young medic in the Israeli army bends the rules to potentially dangerous consequence in “Casualties.” After her mom passes away, a teenage girl comes to live with her aunt outside Tel Aviv and has her first experience with unrequited love in “Say It Again, Say Something Else.” And in the moving title story, two estranged sisters—one whose marriage is ending, the other whose relationship is just beginning—try to recapture the close bond they had as kids. Absorbing, tender, and sharply observed, The Best Place on Earth infuses moments of sorrow with small moments of grace: a boy composes poetry in a bomb shelter, an old photo helps a girl make sense of her mother’s rootless past. Tsabari’s voice is gentle yet wise, illuminating the burdens of history, the strength of the heart, and our universal desire to belong. Praise for The Best Place on Earth “It’s impossible not to be awestruck by the depth and power rendered in Tsabari’s stories.”—Elle “Tsabari creates complex, conflicted, prickly people you'll want to get to know better.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “There’s remarkable scope in Ayelet Tsabari’s The Best Place on Earth, which interweaves stories of discrimination, loss, displacement, sex, death, religion, and a host of other issues. And yet, despite the range of viewpoints and the different facets of Israeli society explored, this is a collection that always stays intensely personal, the broader forces of history moving not merely across nations but within the souls of her beautifully conceived characters.”—Phil Klay, National Book Award–winning author of Redeployment “With incredible compassion and a delicate touch, Ayelet Tsabari explores the heartbreak inherent in forming bonds, whether with another person or with a whole country. The Best Place on Earth, a complicated love song to Israel, is a sure-footed and stunningly skillful debut.”—Shelly Oria, author of New York 1, Tel Aviv 0 “Powerful . . . brilliant . . . These stories . . . depict minorities so skillfully, with such a light and accurate touch.”—The Daily Beast “Highly recommended . . . Compelling and compassionate; [Tsabari’s stories] speak out from the heart of Israeli society and experiences. . . . The stories of The Best Place on Earth leave you wishing they wouldn’t end.”—The Times of Israel “This short story collection is a fiction debut for Tsabari, but it demonstrates that she is already a talented storyteller. . . . Her writing has an immediacy and power that invites readers into her characters’ psyches.”—Publishers Weekly

The Smartest Places on Earth

The Smartest Places on Earth
Author: Antoine van Agtmael
Publisher: Public Affairs
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2016-03-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1610394356

Looks at "rust belt" communities in Europe and the United States, once stagnant and economically depressed, that are now beginning to emerge as zones of economic strength and technological innovation by producing advanced smart-products.

The Gardens of Colonial Williamsburg

The Gardens of Colonial Williamsburg
Author: M. Kent Brinkley
Publisher: Colonial Williamsburg
Total Pages: 186
Release: 1996
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 9780879351588

""The Gardens of Colonial Williamsburg" features twenty gardens in Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area. Stunning photography complements the text and detailed garden plans identify the plantings in each garden. Experience the sights, colors, and textures found in Colonial Williamsburg's gardens each season of the year."--Book jacket.

Earth is Your Sweet Spot

Earth is Your Sweet Spot
Author: Ellae Elinwood
Publisher: Confluence Books
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2012-01-17
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 9781935952039

In Earth Is Your Sweet Spot authors Ellae Elinwood and Dr. Mary Lanier invite all women to the work of their lifetime: transforming themselves and our world. This inspiring little book gently guides the women of the world to connect to their ultimate source of balance and renewal: Mother Earth. By connecting to Earth and remembering and appreciating her, each woman can activate her highest potential and enjoy a more balanced life. The book invites each woman to help heal the Earth in her own unique way, as well as inviting them to intentionally choose to be a creative female leader in her own personal sphere of influence. Earth Is Your Sweet Spot provides inspiration through the authors' rich language and practical advice in the form of exercises for visualizations, breathing, Qi Gong movements, and other easy-to-implement actions for personal growth.

Founding Gardeners

Founding Gardeners
Author: Andrea Wulf
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2012-04-03
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 0307390683

From the bestselling author of The Invention of Nature, a fascinating look at the Founding Fathers like none you've seen before. “Illuminating and engrossing.... The reader relives the first decades of the Republic ... through the words of the statesmen themselves.” —The New York Times Book Review For the Founding Fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions: a conjoined interest as deeply ingrained in their characters as the battle for liberty and a belief in the greatness of their new nation. Founding Gardeners is an exploration of that obsession, telling the story of the revolutionary generation from the unique perspective of their lives as gardeners, plant hobbyists, and farmers. Acclaimed historian Andrea Wulf describes how George Washington wrote letters to his estate manager even as British warships gathered off Staten Island; how a tour of English gardens renewed Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’s faith in their fledgling nation; and why James Madison is the forgotten father of environmentalism. Through these and other stories, Wulf reveals a fresh, nuanced portrait of the men who created our nation.

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello
Author: Charles Granquist
Publisher: Legacy Words
Total Pages: 120
Release: 1983
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

A pictorial look at Thomas Jefferson's historic Virginia estate, Monicello.

Earth Girl

Earth Girl
Author: Janet Edwards
Publisher: Pyr
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2015-03-05
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1616147660

A sensational YA science fiction debut from an exciting new British author! Just because she's confined to the planet, doesn't mean she can't reach for the stars. 2788. Only the handicapped live on Earth. Eighteen-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can't travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She's an "ape," a "throwback," but this is one ape girl who won't give in. Jarra makes up a fake military background for herself and joins a class of norms who are on Earth for a year of practical history studies excavating the dangerous ruins of the old cities. She wants to see their faces when they find out they've been fooled into thinking an ape girl was a norm. She isn't expecting to make friends with the enemy, to risk her life to save norms, or to fall in love. From the Hardcover edition.

Blind Descent

Blind Descent
Author: James M. Tabor
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2011-02-15
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0812979494

“Heart-stopping and relentlessly gripping. Tabor takes us on an odyssey into unfathomable worlds beneath us, and into the hearts of rare explorers who will do anything to get there first.”—Robert Kurson, author of ShadowDivers In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. American Bill Stone took on the vast, deadly Cheve Cave in southern Mexico. Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the war-torn former Soviet republic of Georgia. Both men spent months almost two vertical miles deep, contending with thousand-foot drops, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and the psychological horrors produced by weeks in absolute darkness, beyond all hope of rescue. Based on his unprecedented access to logs and journals as well as hours of personal interviews, James Tabor has crafted a thrilling exploration of man’s timeless urge to discover—and of two extraordinary men whose pursuit of greatness led them to the heights of triumph and the depths of tragedy. Blind Descent is an unforgettable addition to the classic literature of true-life adventure, and a testament to human survival and endurance. “Holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A fascinating and informative introduction to the sport of cave diving, as well as a dramatic portrayal of a significant man-vs.-nature conflict. . . . What counts is Tabor’s knack for maximizing dramatic potential, while also managing to be informative and attentive to the major personalities associated with the most important cave explorations of the last two decades.”—Kirkus Reviews Includes a 16-pg black and white insert

Losing Earth

Losing Earth
Author: Nathaniel Rich
Publisher: Picador
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-03-05
Genre: Climatic changes
ISBN: 9781529015843

By 1979, we knew all that we know now about the science of climate change - what was happening, why it was happening, and how to stop it. Over the next ten years, we had the very real opportunity to stop it. Obviously, we failed.Nathaniel Rich's groundbreaking account of that failure - and how tantalizingly close we came to signing binding treaties that would have saved us all before the fossil fuels industry and politicians committed to anti-scientific denialism - is already a journalistic blockbuster, a full issue of the New York Times Magazine that has earned favorable comparisons to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and John Hersey's Hiroshima. Rich has become an instant, in-demand expert and speaker. A major movie deal is already in place. It is the story, perhaps, that can shift the conversation.In the book Losing Earth, Rich is able to provide more of the context for what did - and didn't - happen in the 1980s and, more important, is able to carry the story fully into the present day and wrestle with what those past failures mean for us in 2019. It is not just an agonizing revelation of historical missed opportunities, but a clear-eyed and eloquent assessment of how we got to now, and what we can and must do before it's truly too late.