In the days before the outbreak of war in Syria, a young Kurdish woman, Zarrin, has brought shame on her family. She has paid a high price - as is the way for such dishonour - and fearing for her life, she flees, stumbling her way blindly to the border with Turkey, where she finds herself amongst a growing tide of migrants in a refugee camp. There, a son, Elend, is born - the product of her punishment. When the weather improves, and still fearing pursuit, she takes Elend, escapes the camp, and heads for Europe, hoping to find refuge there. She makes her way to Britain, scraping a living as best she can, but she is betrayed over and over as she moves from job to job, living hand to mouth and supporting her young son with what little she has. Events conspire to make her flee once more and she finds work as a vegetable picker, exploited, unappreciated but, importantly, largely unnoticed. Then, at last, her fortunes change and she finds happiness and companionship at last. Elend grows strong and love beckons but her happiness is crushed again when she is outed inadvertently by one of her friends and she finds herself pursued once more. This is a compelling tale of a fight for freedom and safety in the vein of American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins.

As human activities are increasingly domesticating the Earth s ecosystems, new selection pressures are acting to produce winners and losers amongst our wildlife. With particular emphasis on plants, Briggs examines the implications of human influences on micro-evolutionary processes in different groups of organisms, including wild, weedy, invasive, feral, and endangered species. Using case studies from around the world, he argues that Darwinian evolution is ongoing. He considers how far it is possible to conserve endangered species and threatened ecosystems through management, and questions the extent to which damaged landscapes and their plant and animal communities can be precisely recreated or restored. Many of Darwin s ideas are highlighted, including his insights into natural selection, speciation, the vulnerability of rare organisms, the impact of invasive species, and the effects of climate change on organisms. An important text for students and researchers of evolution, conservation, climate change and sustainable use of resources.

We are in the midst of a biological revolution. Molecular tools are now providing new means of critically testing hypotheses and models of microevolution in populations of wild, cultivated, weedy and feral plants. They are also offering the opportunity for significant progress in the investigation of long-term evolution of flowering plants, as part of molecular phylogenetic studies of the Tree of Life. This long-awaited fourth edition, fully revised by David Briggs, reflects new insights provided by molecular investigations and advances in computer science. Briggs considers the implications of these for our understanding of the evolution of flowering plants, as well as the potential for future advances. Numerous new sections on important topics such as the evolutionary impact of human activities, taxonomic challenges, gene flow and distribution, hybridisation, speciation and extinction, conservation and the molecular genetic basis of breeding systems will ensure that this remains a classic text for both undergraduate and graduate students in the field.

Poetry Wales: Poetry Books of 2019 Cracked Skull Cinema offers poems on culture and society, colonialism and its legacies, media and power. Set between these are homages and reflections on middle age, on life's loves and losses.

This is a new paperback edition of the well received text Spatial Epidemiology: methods and applications. It is an easy to read, clear and concise exploration of the field of geographical variations in disease. Especially with respect to variations in environmental exposures at the small-area scale this book gives an authoritative account of current practice and developments. The recent and rapid expansion of the field looks set to continue in line with growing public, governmental and media concern about environmental and health issues, and the scientific need to understand and explain the effects of environmental pollutants on health.

Of interest to epidemiologists, public health practitioners, statisticians, geographers, environmental scientists and others concerned with understanding the geographical distribution of disease and the effects of environmental exposures on human health. It will be a valuable source for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in epidemiology, medical geography, biostatistics, environmental health and environmental science as well as a useful source of reference for health policy makers, health economists, regulators and others in the field of environmental health.

Natural populations of plants show intricate patterns of variation. European botanists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used this variation to classify different "kinds" into a hierachy of family, genus, and species. Although useful, these classifications were based on a belief in the fixity of species and the static patterns of variation. Darwin's theory of evolution changed this view; populations and species varied in time and space and were part of a continuing process of evolution. The development of molecular techniques has transformed our understanding of microevolution and the evolutionary history of the flowering plants. This revised, extended edition describes the historical background to plant variation studies and considers the remarkable insights that molecular biology has recently given into the processes of evolution in populations of cultivated, wild and weedy species; the threats of extinction faced by many endangered species and the wider evolutionary history of the flowering plants as revealed by cladistic methods.

Evan Cadwallader comes across the almost dead body of a young woman while panning for gold at his inherited claim in the foothills of New Zealand’s southern Alps. He carries her back to his cottage and as he nurses her back to health, gradually pieces together the story of her life. Evan is torn between his growing feelings for Addie and the pull of his claim, but as the gold begins to flow, they draw ever closer to each other and for a few glorious weeks they thrive. But, like the weather, all must break and what started out blissfully, soon turns sinister. Set during one claustrophobic summer, against a remote and beautiful backdrop, this is a novel about love, loss and companionship that will shimmer under the surface of your thoughts for months to come.