Books about Stinging from Amazon.com

Stinging nettles are, for many of us, nothing more than persistent weeds with a painful sting. But apart from having an important role in the web of life, nettles are an incredibly useful plant to mankind. They have been put to myriad uses by our ancestors, and many of these are still valid today. Already stinging nettle products are growing in popularity in the field of alternative medicine, as their wide range of health benefits becomes better known.

This unique book explores the diverse uses of this fascinating plant - in the garden and the kitchen, for their medical and fibrous properties and so on. It is packed with practical suggestions, as well as a guide to the botany of stinging nettles, and how to collect and store them. For example, you will discover how to use nettles to:

make a liquid plant fertiliser brew an unusual beer make a dandruff treatment protect beehives flavour an omelette make friendship bracelets repel flies naturally make green or yellow fabric dyes keep yourself warm in the winter and much more ...

The many health benefits of taking nettles in various forms include relief from: hay fever and other allergies; acne and other skin conditions; arthritis and rheumatism; asthma; stress; high blood pressure; depression; enlarged prostate gland.

The book also features Digital Nettle Art!.
Price: $8.14 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When Bill Laurance went to northern Australia in the mid-1980s, it was to study the teeming life of a classic rainforest. The problem was, the rainforest of Queensland, already limited in extent, was fast disappearing, logged and bladed into oblivion; even its legendary stinging trees, "a good hit [from which] can hurt for months," seemed in danger of becoming mere memories. Laurance's fieldwork became a running chronicle of what happens to the rainforest's creatures--tree kangaroos and vipers, redback spiders and pygmy possums, and countless other species that are little known outside the area--when once-unpeopled habitats are overrun. (One of the few species to benefit from the region's decline, Laurance observes, is the antechinus, a wolverine-like marsupial that thrives on disturbance.) Laurance soon realized, as he relates in his memoir, that he'd have to couple scientific information with activism in order to protect what little of the forest remained--activism that included recommending the area for a listing under the United Nations' World Heritage program, and that put him squarely at odds with the suspicious loggers who were his neighbors. Although confronted with death threats and an actual attempt on his life, Laurance pressed on, eventually winning over enough Queenslanders to launch a small but growing ecotourism industry. Well-written and often quite funny, Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles will hearten any environmentalist and tropical traveler. --Gregory McNamee.
Price: $17.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $4.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Montpelier Gardens, East Ham: not a bad place for a growing boy, if you liked sports and were happy at school. But this was 1939, and World War II was just around the corner. At first it was all very exciting There were aerial dogfights over London, evacuation to the countryside and new horizons, girls and aircraft to be identified, and the certainty of a swift victory. Then, with the mass bombings of the East End by the Luftwaffe, came the realisation that death was round the corner - literally. The nettles had a sting. And even when the Blitz was over, a terrifying new weapon was unleashed over Southern England - the V-1 flying bomb or 'doodlebug'. When the engine cut out you had ten seconds to live, as the author found out - almost! Bombs, Stinging Nettles and Doodlebugs tells the experiences of a Londoner who was ten when war was declared, and a young man of sixteen when peace finally arrived. It is a story which involves many people in many diverse situations. It involves humour and it involves tragedy; but above all it bears witness to a time when people really cared for each other. Personal recollections, often told with a chilling eye for detail, are interwoven with sketches of the war's progress, giving an historical backdrop to what is an amazingly clear narrative. The author is not shy about addressing the bigger moral issues of warfare, and is glad to thank those - particularly the New Zealanders - who helped us when we stood alone. 'Above all,' he says, 'I remember the humour, the steadfastness, the friendship and the courage of my fellow citizens at that time.' Have we deserved their sacrifices?.
Price: $5.36 [Notify me when price goes down.]