A philosophical and practical guide for the gardener who hopes to wants to create a backyard garden in harmony with nature.
Why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. An eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson uses engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the United States, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists to demonstrate how we can apply the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces.
A book for gardens of all shapes, sizes, and budgets. Includes detailed chapters that address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden.
Includes a Getting Started section complete with general information, suggested further reading for specific regions, native plant information and regional databases, and native plant retail sources and suppliers.
Who is the humane gardener? The humane gardener practices compassionate landscaping. They attract wildlife and peacefully resolve conflicts with all the creatures that may inhabit their garden. They see the garden as a meeting place for all creatures, not a territory to be defended.
Nancy Lawson is a writer, editor, and naturalist, and the founder of Humane Gardener, an outreach initiative to help people live in harmony with the animals in their backyards. She writes the “Humane Backyard” column for All Animals magazine, published by the Humane Society of the United States. Prior to being a freelance writer and consultant, she worked for 15 years as an editor on Humane Society publications.
We’re spring cleaning our costumes, props, and classroom supplies, and it’s time to purge! We’ll be opening our office to the community to take items off our hands. Most garments are one-sized or size inclusive. First come, first served. ALL ITEMS FREE. Bring your own bags to carry away your new treasures!
At Only Make Believe, we create interactive theatre with children in hospitals, care facilities, and special education settings. Inspiring joy and imagination, our professional actors engage children with medically fragile conditions and developmental disabilities, fostering social and emotional growth.
Join Janet, a current art therapist and former bookseller in a thoughtful discussion of curated selections in the psychology realm. Typically meets the second Sunday of each month at 4pm.
Allow yourselves to unwind and create super hero masks, hats, and other kid-friendly giveaways. Everything you create will be used to help children escape into the world of “make believe” during our performances in hospitals, care-facilities, and schools dedicated to serving children with disabilities. No art degree required! Volunteers under 16 years old must be accompanied by an adult. Please RSVP at the link provided.
In the Booker Book Club, we read some of the very best literary fiction written in the English language. We select, read, and discuss shortlisted, longlisted, and winning Booker Prize novels, delving into rich narratives that challenge, inspire, and resonate with the depth and diversity of human experience. Check out http://www.peoplesbooktakoma.com/book-clubs for the current selection!
Join us to explore novels that challenge, subvert, or reimagine the norms of fantasy writing. Every month, we will be exploring diverse and magical worlds, where LBTQ+ characters are at the center of the action and/or written by LBTQ+ authors. Epic adventures, magical beings.
Join The Inner Loop as we discuss a local author’s work, as featured in our monthly Author’s Corner.
Check out http://www.peoplesbooktakoma.com/book-clubs to see this season’s selection!
If you love to escape to different worlds, see magic, and fantastic creatures in your books, come read with us! We will talk about different worlds and the characters that evolve there, and maybe what they teach us about our own world. We will read a range of modern fantasy and speculative fiction with an emphasis on diverse writers and stories that leave us with hope!
Join Jo Ann on the third Sunday of every month and check out http://www.peoplesbooktakoma.com/book-clubs for this month’s selection!
The Takoma Park Neighborhood Branch Library hosts the “Inklings” New Fantasy Book Club, named in honor of the originator of the genre – J.R.R. Tolkien’s own fantasy book club. We meet in-person to discuss the works of current fantasy authors, with a focus on authors who use the freedom of the fantasy genre to subvert institutional and cultural norms.
Meetings are in-person at the Takoma Park Neighborhood Library in the downstairs meeting room. We meet every second Thursday of the month through the end of 2024 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm.
Audience: Adults (20+)
All materials are available through the DCPL Catalog in a variety of formats.
View the 2024 reading list: https://dclibrary.libnet.info/event/9872654
Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to connect with fellow fantasy fans and explore new worlds of imagination. See you there!
Let’s talk about the overlap of social justice and science, the systemic origins of environmental crisis as well as visions of the future. We’ll traverse both nonfiction and speculative works as we seek a deeper understanding of how the natural and built environments of today came to be and where they appear to be going. Check out http://www.peoplesbooktakoma.com/book-clubs for this month’s selection!
For artists and book lovers. DC Arts Studios member Katie Jett Walls will be leading our new book club!
First meeting is Sunday, Feb 4, 2024, at 5pm with the book “Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us” by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross.
Come and meet fellow art lovers to discuss this thought provoking work.
About the book: Leta Hong Fincher’s landmark book Leftover Women shone a light on the resurgence of gender inequality in 21st-century China. Ten years on, women in China continue to experience a dramatic rolling back of rights and gains in the increasingly patriarchal political climate of the Xi Jinping era.
Leftover Women explores the structural discrimination against women and the broader problems with China’s economy, politics, and development that lie behind them. This updated edition includes a new preface exploring developments in China in the 10 years since the book’s original publication, including the new “three child policy”, the growth in online feminist and LGBTQ activism and the state’s increasingly repressive moves against dissent.
About the author: Leta has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Dissent Magazine, Ms. Magazine, BBC, CNN and others. She won the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award for her China reporting. Fluent in Mandarin, Leta is the first American to receive a Ph.D. from Tsinghua University’s Department of Sociology in Beijing and is currently a Research Associate at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University. She has a master’s degree from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree with high honors from Harvard University.
