Kudzu abounds across the American South. Introduced in the United States in the 1800s as a solution for soil erosion, this invasive vine with Eastern Asian origins came to be known as a pernicious invader capable of smothering everything in its path. To many, the plant’s enduring legacy has been its villainous role as the “vine that ate the South.” But for a select few, it has begun to signify something else entirely. In its roots, a network of people scattered across the country see a chance at redemption—and an opportunity to rewrite a fragment of troubled history. Devoured: The Extraordinary Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Ate the South detangles the complicated story of the South’s fickle relationship with kudzu, chronicling the ways the boundless weed has evolved over centuries, and dissecting what climate change could mean for its future across the United States. From architecture teams experimenting with it as a sustainable building material, to clinical applications treating binge-drinking, to chefs harvesting it as a wild edible, environmental journalist Ayurella Horn-Muller spotlights how kudzu’s notorious reputation in America is gradually being cast aside in favor of its promise. Weaving careful research with personal stories, Horn-Muller investigates how kudzu morphed from a miraculous agricultural solution to the monstrous archetypal foe of the southern landscape. Devoured is a poignant narrative of belonging, racial ambiguity, outsiders and insiders, and the path from universal acceptance to undesirability. It is a deeply reported exploration of the landscapes that host the many species we fight to control. Above all, Devoured is an ode to the earth around us—a quest for meaning in today’s imperiled world.

In a poem entitled The Self-Unseeing, Thomas Hardy describes a scene of exaltation ending with the words: "Yet we were looking away!" Garth Lambert has never wanted to be "looking away." In this series of poems, easy of access but with depths to plumb, he turns his gaze on the life of Man and of a man. The earlier, more descriptive poems, inclined toward youthful enthusiasm and worldly beauty, already contain short shadows. The increasingly philosophic later poems explore the dark shadowy corners of personal life and of the world, including the concept of God, who seems to be playing a mean game of hide-and-seek with humankind. The poems do this with unflinching honesty, but also with humanity and humour and frequent glances into the sunlit spaces between the shadows. In the end, a positive message filters through as Garth Lambert espouses the primacy of reason over superstition, of compassion over indifference and cruelty, of nature over human-species sprawl, of life over death, of love over all.

The Shinkokinshū: A New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (ca. 1205) is supreme among the twenty-one anthologies of court poetry ordered by the Japanese emperors between the tenth and fifteenth centuries in terms of overall literary art, the high quality of the almost two thousand poems included, and the depth of poetic sentiment. Laurel Rasplica Rodd's complete translation allows the reader to appreciate the elaborate integration of the anthologized poems into a single whole by means of chronological procession or imagistic association from one poem to the next that was perfected in the Shinkokinshū by Retired Emperor Gotoba, himself a serious poet, and the courtiers he appointed as compilers, including Fujiwara no Teika, one of the greatest of Japanese poets.

Almost a year after the death of his wife, former high-tech executive Ian finds a letter that will change his life. It contains Kate's final wish-a plea for him to take their ten-year-old daughter, Mattie, on a trip across Asia, through the countries they had always planned to visit. Eager to honor the woman they loved, Ian and Mattie embark on an epic journey, leaving notes to Kate in "wishing trees" along the way, and encountering miracles large and small. And as they begin to find their way back to each other, they discover that healing is possible and love endures-lessons that Kate hoped to show them all along...

With references to traditional Taoist and Chinese texts, as well as influences from the author's background in psychology and psychotherapy, this book by Lorie Dechar demonstrates how practitioners can work with the spirit of acupuncture points in modern practice. The concept of 'kigo', a Japanese word meaning 'season word', is used to understand the seasonal energy of the points and how the body relates to the universal flow. As an understanding of the spirit of the point brings focus and potency to a practitioner's needling, it also strengthens their ability to touch a patient's soul and spirit, besides the physical body. Tying in the macro cosmic connection of the body to the universe with a poetic force that amplifies and deepens the effect of acupuncture, Kigo is the perfect companion not only for acupuncturists, but also for chiropractors and psychotherapists, doctors and nurses, and other practitioners who use the points as part of their clinical work.