A journey along the centuries-old trade route from the Ethiopian highlands to the ancient cities of Yemen.

Lured by idyllic memories of ancient cities, spectacular mountains &, most of all, dreamy afternoons spent chewing the psychoactive leaves of the qat tree, Rushby set out to travel the old "Qat Road" from the highlands of Ethiopia to Yemen. It was to prove a fascinating and dangerous journey, peopled with an extraordinary array of characters -- criminals, Islamic scholars, an exorcist, and the mysterious Cedric, the traveling companion from hell. Rushby combines classic travel writing with an explanation of the rich and varied culture surrounding the drug qat. Legal in the U.K., but banned in the U.S., experts claim it to be as mild as tea or as addictive as cocaine. Photos.

With a taste for the exotic, the author introduces the still-surreal world at the south end of the Red Sea, where Western values have yet to penetrate the centuries-old traditions and a leafy psychoactive plant called Qat has shaped an entire culture. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Can swallowing a poinsettia leaf kill you? Why do you have to cook taro before you eat it? Is cooking with oleander wood really dangerous? Poisonous Plants of Paradise, a well-researched and generously illustrated guide to potentially harmful plants in Hawai'i, answers these questions and many more in everyday language and in a user-friendly format. Of value to both medical professionals and the general public, this handbook describes each plant in words and color photos, then identifies the plant's toxins, mechanism of injury, incidence, signs and symptoms, and traditional and modern uses. The authors offer first aid recommendations and discuss advanced medical treatment based on the latest published literature. Health-care workers, naturalists, hikers, parents, and child-care providers will find Poisonous Plants of Paradise a highly useful and informative reference.

When Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates moved into a duplex in a run-down part of Holyoke, Massachusetts, the tenth-of-an-acre lot was barren ground and bad soil, peppered with broken pieces of concrete, asphalt, and brick. The two friends got to work designing what would become not just another urban farm, but a "permaculture paradise" replete with perennial broccoli, paw paws, bananas, and moringa—all told, more than two hundred low-maintenance edible plants in an innovative food forest on a small city lot. The garden—intended to function like a natural ecosystem with the plants themselves providing most of the garden's needs for fertility, pest control, and weed suppression—also features an edible water garden, a year-round unheated greenhouse, tropical crops, urban poultry, and even silkworms. In telling the story of Paradise Lot, Toensmeier explains the principles and practices of permaculture, the choice of exotic and unusual food plants, the techniques of design and cultivation, and, of course, the adventures, mistakes, and do-overs in the process. Packed full of detailed, useful information about designing a highly productive permaculture garden, Paradise Lot is also a funny and charming story of two single guys, both plant nerds, with a wild plan: to realize the garden of their dreams and meet women to share it with. Amazingly, on both counts, they succeed.

Successfully navigate the rich world of travel narratives and identify fiction and nonfiction read-alikes with this detailed and expertly constructed guide. Just as savvy travelers make use of guidebooks to help navigate the hundreds of countries around the globe, smart librarians need a guidebook that makes sense of the world of travel narratives. Going Places: A Reader's Guide to Travel Narratives meets that demand, helping librarians assist patrons in finding the nonfiction books that most interest them. It will also serve to help users better understand the genre and their own reading interests. The book examines the subgenres of the travel narrative genre in its seven chapters, categorizing and describing approximately 600 titles according to genres and broad reading interests, and identifying hundreds of other fiction and nonfiction titles as read-alikes and related reads by shared key topics. The author has also identified award-winning titles and spotlighted further resources on travel lit, making this work an ideal guide for readers' advisors as well a book general readers will enjoy browsing.