Think of Ireland and what comes to mind. Forty shades of greenThis ancient mystic land is much more colourful than that - with a stunning variety of flora and fauna waiting to be enjoyed. And Co. Wexford, located in the southeast corner of the island, is particularly rich in its diversity of wildlife and habitats. Bordered by a mountain range on its western flank and by seas to the east and south, Co Wexford is a feast for the senses - with spectacular coastlines and islands, rolling hills, rich patchwork countryside, rugged cliffs, ever changing sand-dune systems, brackish lagoons, large estuaries and meandering streams and rivers. Come with us and explore all this natural beauty in 'Wexford's Wild Heritage'. This book encompasses the locations visited and the wildlife experienced by Alan, Chris and Don during a year-long recording of a radio series. Page after colourful page features wonderful wildlife photos and unique artwork. The images speak for themselves with just a smattering of explanatory text to help with locations and identifications. You don't have to be Irish to appreciate and enjoy 'Wexford's Wild Heritage, a wildlife book produced by people like yourself with a love for the natural world. The enthusiastic people who contributed their time and knowledge to help us achieve our goal made our journey through the seasons even more enjoyable. We express our sincere gratitude to you all. Based on 'Wexford's Wild Heritage', a twenty-five part Radio Series grant-aided by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and broadcast by South East Radio this publication brings together some of the natural wildlife delights of Co. Wexford. The opportunity for the Wildside Team to explore Co. Wexford, which is not only steeped in history, but can boast such rich and varied landscapes, was a tremendous privilege. There are many un-spoilt areas to discover that are a feast for the senses - stunning coastlines and islands, rolling hills, rich patchwork countryside, rugged cliffs, ever changing sand-dune systems, brackish lagoons, large estuaries and meandering streams and rivers. And it is the flora and fauna, both resident and migrant, to be found in these habitats that we have tried to encompass within the pages of this book. The twelve months we spent visiting as many locations as we could around the County happened to coincide with some of the wettest and coldest weather on record for decades. In spite of this we had some wonderful wildlife encounters -- from the top of Mount Leinster to the rocky outcrop of Hook Head, from Camolin Woods to the Ballyteigue Dunes, from the Slaney to Great Saltee - our yearlong journey through Co. Wexford's seasons was inspirational. The enthusiastic people who contributed their time and knowledge to help us achieve our goal made that journey easier and more enjoyable. We express our sincere gratitude to you all. Lets hope this book will encourage you to get out and discover more of what our amazing County has to offer -- Wexford's Wild Heritage.

If you have ever dreamed of having your own calm, tranquil and beautifully designed Japanese garden space at your home then '11 Simple Ways To Turn Your Garden Japanese' will give you some inspiring ideas that won't break the bank. From basic small space gardens to much larger Japanese style gardens this book explains the principles of Japanese garden design, shows you design plans, pictures, gives some very useful tips and all in plain English. Learn the methods of Japanese gardening that stretch back hundreds of years and how to use them with a more contemporary twist. Bridges, edging, Rocks, Stones, Moss, Dry water, Trees, Shrubs , Courtyard gardens are just some of the ways that you can add a touch of Japan to your garden space. Author Russ Chard is an expert on Japanese gardens and has published 3 books and has numerous websites on the subject as well as a weekly newsletter for lovers of Japanese gardens. Landscape designer Tim Sykes shares a full domestic Japanese themed garden design in the book as well.

If you have ever wondered 'What is a Zen garden?' then this 50 page new publication for 2013 will tell you. Zen gardens are beautiful Japanese gardens steeped in history, religious meaning and a visual simplicity. There are many styles and many ingredients, Stones, Rocks, Moss, Sand, Gravel, Plants and Shrubs,Lanterns and Ornaments. Japanese Zen gardens is a book that introduces the reader to the subject and presents the options available for anyone wishing to build their own garden space at home - however large or small. Zen gardens are becoming more and more popular around the world and building one is not as difficult as you may think. With a little knowledge and following our step by step instructions with pictures you will discover how straight forward it is to build a Zen garden in your yard or garden. Japanese Zen gardens are serene havens of tranquil beauty and the perfect antidote to a stressful world. The author Russ Chard has written and published Japanese garden books, articles and videos for the past 10 years.

‘The Gustav Holst Way’ is the first guidebook to describe the 35-mile rambling route across the Cotswolds to celebrate the life and work of the composer Gustav Holst. Published exactly 100 years after Holst began work on The Planets, the route visits many of the places that were important to the young Holst as his musical career took wing. Among the highlights are the house in Cheltenham where he was born (now the Holst Birthplace Museum) and several venues in the Cotswolds where he played, conducted and taught music. The richly illustrated guidebook divides the walk into five easy/moderate sections (with four optional detours) and includes detailed maps, points of historical interest and all the practical information you need to follow in Gustav Holst’s footsteps from Cranham to Wyck Rissington. The Holst Birthplace Museum Gustav Holst, one of England’s greatest composers, was born in a Regency terraced house in Cheltenham in 1874. The house has been carefully restored and converted into a ‘living museum’ that captures the atmosphere of the era, both above and below stairs. The most eye-catching of the museum’s collection of 3,000 items is the piano on which Holst composed The Planets, as popular as ever nearly 100 years after it was published. Step inside the Museum and see the piano Holst used to compose The Planets. Find out how he developed into a world-class composer by examining and listening to original manu*s written when he was a schoolboy in Cheltenham. "

Psychiatry has ignored the normal. The focus on defining abnormal behavior has obscured what turns out to be a more fundamental question how does the biology of the brain give rise to the mind, which in turn gives rise to everything we care about: thoughts, feelings, desires, and relationships In The Other Side of Normal , Harvard psychiatrist Jordan Smoller shows us that understanding what the mind was designed to do in the first place demystifies mental illness and builds a new foundation for defining psychiatric disorders from autism to depression. Smoller argues there are no bright lines between normal and abnormal. Psychiatric disorders are variations of the same brain systems that evolved to help us solve the challenges of everyday life. How do we become who we areSmoller explains where our personalities come from, and how the temperaments we had as infants actually stay with us into adulthood. Why do we choose to date, love, and marry the people we doWhy do some of us form healthy relationships while others form unstable onesOur relationships are shaped by the biology that drives two imperatives: maternal-child bonding and child-parent attachment. Along the way, Smoller tackles an even greater question what do we mean by "normal" as he explores the puzzles behind the epidemics of multiple personalities and koro, the shocking phobia that one's penis is shrinking. He also looks at the controversial history of psychiatric classification and the explosive debates over how much early experiences influence our minds and to what degree genetics affect our temperaments, personalities, and emotional lives. Throughout this examination, Smoller explores the hidden sides of such questions as: How are trust and love rooted in biologyHow much does sexual attraction stem from biology rather than cultureAnd what can the scientific study of normal behavior tell us about what it means to be human Based on the author's groundbreaking research and personal experiences treating psychological disorders, The Other Side of Normal changes the way we think about the human condition.

At the heart of The Republic of Love are the voices of three musicians-queer nightclub star Zeki Muren, arabesk originator Orhan Gencebay, and pop diva Sezen Aksu-who collectively have dominated mass media in Turkey since the early 1950s. Their fame and ubiquity have made them national icons-but, Martin Stokes here contends, they do not represent the official version of Turkish identity propagated by anthems or flags; instead they evoke a much more intimate and ambivalent conception of Turkishness.Using these three singers as a lens, Stokes examines Turkey's repressive politics and civil violence as well as its uncommonly vibrant public life in which music, art, literature, sports, and journalism have flourished. However, Stokes's primary concern is how Mren, Gencebay, and Aksu's music and careers can be understood in light of theories of cultural intimacy. In particular, he considers their contributions to the development of a Turkish concept of love, analyzing the ways these singers explore the private matters of intimacy, affection, and sentiment on the public stage.

After an explosion of conversions to Pentecostalism over the past three decades, tens of millions of Nigerians now claim that "e;Jesus is the answer. But if Jesus is the answer, what is the questionWhat led to the movement's dramatic rise and how can we make sense of its social and political significanceIn this ambitiously interdisciplinary study, Ruth Marshall draws on years of fieldwork and grapples with a host of important thinkers-including Foucault, Agamben, Arendt, and Benjamin-to answer these questions.To account for the movement's success, Marshall explores how Pentecostalism presents the experience of being born again as a chance for Nigerians to realize the promises of political and religious salvation made during the colonial and postcolonial eras. Her astute analysis of this religious trend sheds light on Nigeria's contemporary politics, postcolonial statecraft, and the everyday struggles of ordinary citizens coping with poverty, corruption, and inequality.Pentecostalism's rise is truly global, and Political Spiritualities persuasively argues that Nigeria is a key case in this phenomenon while calling for new ways of thinking about the place of religion in contemporary politics.

Seven decades after his death, German Jewish writer, philosopher, and literary critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) continues to fascinate and influence. Here Uwe Steiner offers a comprehensive and sophisticated introduction to the oeuvre of this intriguing theorist.Acknowledged only by a small circle of intellectuals during his lifetime, Benjamin is now a major figure whose work is essential to an understanding of modernity. Steiner traces the development of Benjamin's thought chronologically through his writings on philosophy, literature, history, politics, the media, art, photography, cinema, technology, and theology. Walter Benjamin reveals the essential coherence of its subject's thinking while also analyzing the controversial or puzzling facets of Benjamin's work. That coherence, Steiner contends, can best be appreciated by placing Benjamin in his proper context as a member of the German philosophical tradition and a participant in contemporary intellectual debates.As Benjamin's writing attracts more and more readers in the English-speaking world, Walter Benjamin will be a valuable guide to this fascinating body of work.

Victor Hugo says, that "Africa will be the continent of the twentieth century." Already the nations are struggling to possess it. Stanley's explorations proved the majesty and efficacy of equipment and force amid these dusky peoples and through the awful mazes of the unknown. Empires watched with eager eye the progress of his last daring journey. Science and civilization stood ready to welcome its results. He comes to light again, having escaped ambush, flood, the wild beast and disease, and his revelations set the world aglow. He is greeted by kings, hailed by savants, and looked to by the colonizing nations as the future pioneer of political power and commercial enterprise in their behalf, as he has been the most redoubtable leader of adventure in the past. This miraculous journey of the dashing and intrepid explorer, completed against obstacles which all believed to be insurmountable, safely ended after opinion had given him up as dead, together with its bearings on the fortunes of those nations who are casting anew the chart of Africa, and upon the native peoples who are to be revolutionized or exterminated by the last grand surges of progress, all these render a volume dedicated to travel and discovery, especially in the realm of "The Dark Continent," surprisingly agreeable and useful at this time. How like enchantment is the story of that revelation which the New America furnished the Old World! What a spirit of inquiry and exploit it opened! How un-precedented and startling, adventure of every kind became! What thrilling vol-umes tell of the hardships of daring navigators or of the perils of brave and dash-ing landsmen! Later on, who fails to read with the keenest emotion of those dan-gers, trials and escapes which enveloped the intrepid searchers after the icy secrets of the Poles, or confronted those who would unfold the tale of the older civiliza-tions and of the ocean’s island spaces.Though the directions of pioneering enterprise change, yet more and more man searches for the new. To follow him, is to write of the wonderful. Again, to follow him is to read of the surprising and the thrilling. No prior history of discovery has ever exceeded in vigorous entertainment and startling interest that which centers in “The Dark Continent” and has for its most distinguished hero, Henry M. Stan-ley. His coming and going in the untrodden and hostile wilds of Africa, now to rescue the stranded pioneers of other nationalities, now to explore the unknown waters of a mighty and unique system, now to teach cannibal tribes respect for decency and law, and now to map for the first time with any degree of accuracy, the limits of new dynasties, make up a volume of surpassing moment and peculiar fascination.All the world now turns to Africa as the scene of those adventures which pos-sess such a weird and startling interest for readers of every class, and which invite to heroic exertion on the part of pioneers. It is the one dark, mysterious spot, strangely made up of massive mountains, lofty and extended plateaus, salt and sandy deserts, immense fertile stretches, climates of death and balm, spacious lakes, gigantic rivers, dense forests, numerous, grotesque and savage peoples, and an animal life of fierce mien, enormous strength and endless variety. It is the country of the marvelous, yet none of its marvels exceed its realities.And each exploration, each pioneering exploit, each history of adventure into its mysterious depths, but intensifies the world’s view of it and enhances human interest in it, for it is there the civilized nations are soon to set metes and bounds to their grandest acquisitions—perhaps in peace, perhaps in war. It is there that white colonization shall try its boldest problems. It is there that Christianity shall engage in one of its hardest contests.

Account of a trip to America. Here's how he begins his description of San Francisco: " 'Serene, indifferent to fate, Thou sittest at the Western Gate; Thou seest the white seas fold their tents, Oh, warder of two continents; Thou drawest all things, small and great, To thee, beside the Western Gate.' This is what Bret Harte has written of the great city of San Francisco, and for the past fortnight I have been wondering what made him do it. There is neither serenity nor indifference to be found in these parts; and evil would it be for the continents whose wardship were intrusted to so reckless a guardian."

Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Rudyard Kipling, ‘Letters of Travel (1892-1913).’ ? Letters of Travel, 1892-1913, originally published in 1920, is a collection of articles on Japan, the United States, Canada and Egypt. ? Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". ? Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all of which he declined

Dodo Collections brings you another classic from George Ade ‘In Pastures New.’ ‘In Pastures New’ is a humorous account of travels, chiefly in London and Egypt. Many of the letters appearing in this volume were printed in a syndicate of newspapers in the early months of 1906. With these letters have been incorporated extracts from letters written to the Chicago Record in 1895 and 1898. George Ade (February 9, 1866 – May 16, 1944) was an American writer, newspaper columnist, and playwright.? Ade's literary reputation rests upon his achievements as a great humorist of American character during an important era in American history: the first large wave of migration from the countryside to burgeoning cities like Chicago, where, in fact, Ade produced his best fiction. He was a practicing realist during the Age of (William Dean) Howells and a local colorist of Chicago and the Midwest. His work constitutes a vast comedy of Midwestern manners and, indeed, a comedy of late 19th-century American manners. In 1915, Sir Walter Raleigh, Oxford professor and man of letters, while on a lecture tour in America, called George Ade "the greatest living American writer. Ade's fiction dealt consistently with the "little man," the common, undistinguished, average American, usually a farmer or lower middle class citizen. (He sometimes skewered women, too, especially women with laughable social pretensions.) Ade followed in the footsteps of his idol Mark Twain by making expert use of the American language. A striking and unique feature of Ade's essays was the creative and liberal use of capitalization. George Ade is one of the American writers whose publications made him rich.

Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Arnold Bennett, ‘"Your United States: Impressions of a first visit Arnold Bennett."’ ? Enoch Arnold Bennett (always known as Arnold Bennett) was one of the most remarkable literary figures of his time, a product of the English Potteries that he made famous as the Five Towns. Yet he could hardly wait to escape his home town, and he did so by the sheer force of his ambition to succeed as an author. In his time he turned his hand to every kind of writing, but he will be remembered for such novels as The Old Wives' Tale, the Clayhanger trilogy (Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain), and The Card. He also wrote such intriguing self-improvement books as Literary Taste, How To Live on 24 Hours a Day, The Human Machine, etc. ? After a local education Bennett finished his education at the University of London and for a time was editor of Woman magazine. After 1900 he devoted himself entirely to writing; dramatic criticism was one of his foremost interests. Bennett is best known, however, for his novels, several of which were written during his residence in France. ? Bennett's infancy was spent in genteel poverty, which gave way to prosperity as his father succeeded as a solicitor. From this provincial background he became a novelist. ? His enduring fame is as a Chronicler of the Potteries towns, the setting and inspiration of some of his most famous and enduring literary work and the place where he grew up.

Travel essay, first published in French in "The Orient" in 1869. According to Wikipedia: "Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (August 30, 1811 – October 23, 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism. He was widely esteemed by writers as diverse as Balzac, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert and Oscar Wilde."

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