How are birds linked to house prices? How can a gardener improve the flavour of their vegetables? Do wildflowers really thrive in poor soil? In this collection of articles from The Telegraph, biologist and gardening columnist Ken Thompson takes a scientific look at some of the greater – and lesser – questions faced by gardeners everywhere in a bid to sort the genuine wisdom from the hokum. What is the ideal temperature for a compost heap? What do bees do that improves strawberries? Why are gardeners in literature always such dummies? This is an expert's gardening miscellany, aimed at making you not necessarily a better gardener, but probably a far more thoughtful one.
What is the best way to kill weeds in paving? How scared should we really be of Japanese knotweed? And what is a weed anyway? Biologist Ken Thompson set out to write a different kind of gardening column, one that tackles what he calls 'the grit in the gardening oyster'. In this new collection he takes a look at some of the questions faced by gardeners everywhere in a bid to sort the truth from the wishful thinking. Why are the beaks of British great tits getting longer? Which common garden insect owns a set of metal-tipped running spikes? Why might growing orange petunias land you in hot water? Are foxes getting bigger? How do you stop the needles falling off your Christmas tree? This expert's miscellany of (mostly) scientifically-tested garden lore will make you look at your garden through fresh eyes.
Free space for the city gardener might be no more than a cramped patio, balcony, rooftop, windowsill, hanging rafter, dark cabinet, garage, or storage area, but no space is too small or too dark to raise food. With this book as a guide, people living in apartments, condominiums, townhouses, and single-family homes will be able to grow up to 20 percent of their own fresh food using a combination of traditional gardening methods and space-saving techniques such as reflected lighting and container "terracing." Those with access to yards can produce even more. Author R. J. Ruppenthal worked on an organic vegetable farm in his youth, but his expertise in urban and indoor gardening has been hard-won through years of trial-and-error experience. In the small city homes where he has lived, often with no more than a balcony, windowsill, and countertop for gardening, Ruppenthal and his family have been able to eat at least some homegrown food 365 days per year.
The Athiest’s Primer is a concise but wide-ranging introduction to a variety of arguments, concepts, and issues pertaining to belief in God. In lucid and engaging prose, Malcom Murray offers a penetrating yet fair-minded critique of the traditional arguments for the existence of God. He then explores a number of other important issues relevant to religious belief, such as the problem of suffering and the relationship between religion and morality, in each case arguing that atheism is preferable to theism. The book will appeal to both students and professionals in the philosophy of religion, as well as general audiences interested in the topic.
In The Prairie Winterscape: Creative Gardening for the Forgotten Season experienced gardeners Barbara Kam and Nora Bryan show how to claim winter as a gardening season by exploring the different and surprising ways to create natural beauty during the "no-grow" time of year. Many prairie gardeners are unaware that their gardens can be winter wonderlands with as much visual appeal as the glorious summer landscapes they are accustomed to. For most, the first hard frosts are a sign to put the garden to bed until spring, which in some places and some years can be as many as 260 days away. That's a long time for an avid gardener to be "on hold," yearning to work the soil and smell the roses. But it needn't be so. By selecting trees and shrubs with dramatic silhouettes and colorful berries and bark, creating ornamental focal points that are enhanced by delicate rims of frost or a light blanket of snow, and leaving flower borders filled during the winter months with a collection of sturdy plants and grasses boasting interesting seed heads, prairie gardeners can redefine their favorite pastime to include the "forgotten season." It's an idea whose time has come.
Editor John Warwick Montgomery (b. 1931) is one of the major philosophical apologists of the 20th century. He is also a trained lawyer, which influenced his "historical/legal" approach to Christian apologetics. He is perhaps best known as a writer for his books History and Christianity, How Do We Know There is a God?, Faith Founded on Fact, Evidence for Faith, Where is History Going?, The Shape of the Past, The Quest for Noah's Ark, as well as for his debates with the infamous atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1967); with Joseph Fletcher [reprinted in Situation Ethics: True or False); with "Death of God" theologian Thomas Altizer [reprinted in The Suicide of Christian Theology]. R.C. Sproul wrote in the Foreword to this 1974 book, "The essays in this book were written as research articles for delivery at the Conferece on the Inspiration and Authority of Scripture... in the fall of 19763. The Conference was sponsored by the Ligonier Valley Study Center, a facility developed to make the resources of Christian scholarship available to today's laymen and pastors... The eleven essays comprising the text of this book were all publicly delivered at the Ligonier Conference." (Pg. 9) Essays are included by authors such as Montgomery; J.I. Packer; John Gerstner; Clark Pinnock; John Frame; Sproul, etc. Montgomery states in his own Introduction that "The Ligonier Conference ... [was] designed specifically to serve as an adrenal injection for the faint-of-heart who question the place of inerrancy in historic Christian theology or doubt that modern research is compatible with an errorless Bible. The essayists may differ from each other in a number of respects... [but] they hold in common the historic Christian confidence in an entirely trustworthy Bible. They would impart that confidence to the readers of this volume..." (Pg. 14) Montgomery states in his first essay, "Embedded in the liberal evangelical's attempt to preserve an infallible Bible in spite of errors is a further and even more serious fallacy. We invariably find that the 'non-revelational areas' are the areas of 'science and history'---the areas of prime testability... The result---if one carries this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion---is ... Where the Bible errs, it is non-revelatory; when it is capable of being tested ... it is precariously revelatory---revelatory only until proven wrong; and where it cannot be tested it always remains revelatory and inerrant!... This is just like believers in sea serpents claiming that they appear only when no scientists are present." (Pg. 31-32) Pinnock observes, "If we say, as Vatican II does, that inspiration guarantees only those truths necessary for salvation, the question arises, how much we need to know to be saved. The way is open for someone to come along wth the opinion that he need know very little. Very little, then, is inerrantly taught in Scripture." (Pg. 150) Sproul says in an essay, "Jesus' understanding of the ... Old Testament Scriptures ... casts a shadow over his own sinlessness---Jesus does not have to be omniscient to be infallible. But he must be infallible to be sinless. That is to say, if Jesus, claiming to be sent from God and invoking the authority of God in his teaching errs in that teaching, he is guilty of sin. The one who claims to be the truth cannot err and be consistent with that claim. Anyone claiming absolute authority in his teaching must be abolutely trustworthy in what he teaches in order to merit absolute authority. In light of his claims, Jesus cannot plead 'invincible ignorance' as an excuse for error." (Pg. 253) These essays will be of great interest to any Christians studying the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. -- by Steven H. Propp Top 100 Reviewer
A thorough and detailed approach to the material makes this subject accessible for all AS and A2 students, and will particularly help ensure higher achieving students attain their best grades. For use with the 2008 AQA specification. Each Textbook has an accompanying Teacher's Book containing much of the active learning and testing of knowledge and skills. They contain discussion ideas, worksheets, revision tests and games as well as sample exam questions and mark schemes. There is a Textbook and Teacher's Book for each major exam board.
This new approach to the Philosophy of Religion option is perfect for the all-new revised AS and A2 Religious Studies qualification. A thorough and detailed approach to the material makes this subject accessible for all AS and A2 students, and will particularly help ensure higher achieving students attain their best grades.
