Showing results for "strange" in Home & Garden

From the hanging gardens of Babylon to that fiddle-leaf fig in your living room, houseplants have been humanity’s companions for a millennia. Taming the Potted Beast explores the history of our air-purifying friends with an entertaining narrative of the peculiar, often dramatic story of the cultivation and domestication of the not-so-humble houseplant. Including entertaining historical vignettes, DIY plant projects, and accessible tips and tricks for caring for your own historical houseplant collection, this book has any plant-curious listener covered.

In The Invention of the Modern Dog, Michael Worboys, Julie-Marie Strange, and Neil Pemberton explore when, where, why, and how Victorians invented the modern way of ordering and breeding dogs. Though talk of "breed" was common before this period in the context of livestock, the modern idea of a dog breed defined in terms of shape, size, coat, and color arose during the Victorian period in response to a burgeoning competitive dog show culture.

There are nearly 1,400 known varieties of wine grapes in the world - from altesse to zierfandler - but 80 percent of the wine we drink is made from only 20 grapes. In Godforsaken Grapes, Jason Wilson looks at how that came to be and embarks on a journey to discover what we miss. While hunting down obscure and underappreciated wines, he looks at why these wines fell out of favor (or never gained it in the first place), what it means to be obscure, and how geopolitics, economics, and fashion have changed what we drink.

Most car collectors exhibit a healthy enthusiasm for their hobby with a tendency to dig into their favorite marques, chase parts, swap stories, and generally live the car-enthusiast lifestyle. Some, however, step over that fine line between enthusiasm and obsession—and that’s the dusty place where these legendary car-collector stories come from.

Volunteer search and rescue dog trainer, Avery Barks, is excited about a job opportunity at a new animal rescue sanctuary. Her fun-loving golden retriever, Chevy, is excited about his new friend, Princess. There is a whole lot more going on behind the scenes at this place then she could ever have imagined. Numerous holes have started to appear across the sanctuary's landscape and a trained cadaver dog just found a dead body...and that is just during her job interview!

The Wild Duck Chase takes listeners into the peculiar world of competitive duck painting as it played out during the 2010 Federal Duck Stamp Contest - the only juried art competition run by the U.S. government. Since 1934, the duck stamp, which is bought annually by hunters to certify their hunting license, has generated more than $750 million, and 98 cents of each collected dollar has been used to help purchase or lease 5.3 million acres of waterfowl habitat in the U.S. - the core of the National Wildlife Refuge System.