'In A Word' is a collection of over twenty mainstream poems, three collections of Haiku poems, three monologues and one sonnet and includes his prize winning poem 'The Lost Voice'. His poems reflect his thoughtful and sometimes quirky response to true life events. Over the past four years he has written two travel journals, six short stories, two plays and two children's stories. This is his first collection of poetry.

Religionless Spirituality claims that neither religion nor materialistic science satisfies the ache of the human heart for meaning or significance. We have experienced wonderful progress through the advances of science. Unfortunately, our achievements in many respects have become our atrocities. Since the Enlightenment, mechanistic science has insisted that it is only through reason that we can objectively prove anything, thereby excluding all subjective experience. This is the predominant paradigm by which capitalism and materialism prevail. Modern society has almost completely adopted this model. Because of this near total embrace, the environment of the human habitat is becoming more and more threatened. Through this model we infer that infinite growth can fit into a finite world. The ego is catered to as a consequence, but our spirit grows ever more impoverished. What use is verification by the human eye if the subjective experience of sight is excluded? Science explains but tells us nothing of experience. We need a spirit of transcendence, something that lies beyond matter, to explain the human construct. This is where spirituality enters. Religion, for its own ends, has politicized spirituality and co-opted for power and control. Individually, spirituality calls us to reclaim the birthright of God's divinity alive within each of us. True spirituality calls us to look to the power within. True spirituality belongs to each individual. We must adopt a new paradigm, decontaminate ourselves from organized religion, and see our own individual divinity.

Angel investment and finance have been spreading from Silicon Valley to other parts of the world, including Asia, at an accelerating pace. Yet there have been few attempts to document this phenomenon and examine the hows and whys of startup financing in the region. Angel Financing in Asia Pacific addresses this knowledge gap by approaching the subject matter from two angles. First, from a journalistic angle, it aims to capture the current status and recent developments in a number of countries or territories in Asia. In each country report, the respective author(s) trace the background, trends, and future outlook of technology and innovation driven developments and related angel investment activities. The second part of the book takes a more analytical and prescriptive angle to the subject; making recommendations, providing analysis, and suggesting new approaches to startup financing in the Asia Pacific region.

Landscape designers have long understood the use of plants to provide beauty, aesthetic pleasure and visual stimulation while supporting a broad range of functional goals. However, the potential for plants in the landscape to elicit human involvement and provide mental stimulation and restoration is much less well understood. This book meshes the art of planting design with an understanding of how humans respond to natural environments. Beginning with an understanding of human needs, preferences and responses to landscape, the author interprets the ways in which an understanding of the human-environment interaction can inform planting design. Many of the principles and techniques that may be used in planting design are beautifully illustrated in full colour with examples by leading landscape architects and designers from the United Kingdom, Europe, North America and Asia, including: Andrea Cochran, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, San Francisco, CA Design Workshop Inc. Richard Hartlage, Land Morphology, Seattle, WA Shunmyo Masuno, Japan Landscape Consultants Ltd., Yokohama Piet Oudolf, Hummelo, The Netherlands Melody Redekop, Vancouver Christine Ten Eyck, Ten Eyck Landscape Architects Inc., Austin, TX Kongjian Yu, Turenscape Ltd., Beijing. The book stimulates thought, provides new direction and assists the reader to find their own unique design voice. Because there are many valid processes and intentions for landscape design, the book is not intended to be overly prescriptive. Rather than presenting a strict design method and accompanying set of rules, Planting Design provides information, insight and inspiration as a basis for developing the individual designer's own expression in this most challenging of art forms.

Landscape designers have long understood the use of plants to provide beauty, aesthetic pleasure and visual stimulation while supporting a broad range of functional goals. However, the potential for plants in the landscape to elicit human involvement and provide mental stimulation and restoration is much less well understood. This book meshes the art of planting design with an understanding of how humans respond to natural environments. Beginning with an understanding of human needs, preferences and responses to landscape, the author interprets the ways in which an understanding of the human-environment interaction can inform planting design. Many of the principles and techniques that may be used in planting design are beautifully illustrated in full colour with examples by leading landscape architects and designers from the United Kingdom, Europe, North America and Asia, including: Andrea Cochran, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, San Francisco, CA Design Workshop Inc. Richard Hartlage, Land Morphology, Seattle, WA Shunmyo Masuno, Japan Landscape Consultants Ltd., Yokohama Piet Oudolf, Hummelo, The Netherlands Melody Redekop, Vancouver Christine Ten Eyck, Ten Eyck Landscape Architects Inc., Austin, TX Kongjian Yu, Turenscape Ltd., Beijing. The book stimulates thought, provides new direction and assists the reader to find their own unique design voice. Because there are many valid processes and intentions for landscape design, the book is not intended to be overly prescriptive. Rather than presenting a strict design method and accompanying set of rules, Planting Design provides information, insight and inspiration as a basis for developing the individual designer's own expression in this most challenging of art forms.

Religionless Spirituality claims that neither religion nor materialistic science satisfies the ache of the human heart for meaning or significance. We have experienced wonderful progress through the advances of science. Unfortunately, our achievements in many respects have become our atrocities. Since the Enlightenment, mechanistic science has insisted that it is only through reason that we can objectively prove anything, thereby excluding all subjective experience. This is the predominant paradigm by which capitalism and materialism prevail. Modern society has almost completely adopted this model. Because of this near total embrace, the environment of the human habitat is becoming more and more threatened. Through this model we infer that infinite growth can fit into a finite world. The ego is catered to as a consequence, but our spirit grows ever more impoverished. What use is verification by the human eye if the subjective experience of sight is excluded? Science explains but tells us nothing of experience. We need a spirit of transcendence, something that lies beyond matter, to explain the human construct. This is where spirituality enters. Religion, for its own ends, has politicized spirituality and co-opted for power and control. Individually, spirituality calls us to reclaim the birthright of God's divinity alive within each of us. True spirituality calls us to look to the power within. True spirituality belongs to each individual. We must adopt a new paradigm, decontaminate ourselves from organized religion, and see our own individual divinity.

"SAGE Handbooks set a standard amongst compendia for fields within the social sciences...The book is well produced and includes an excellent index..one that will prove useful to graduate students..." Paul B. Thompson, Michigan State University"This book raises the theoretical level of rural studies to new heights the Handbook of Rural Studies will likely become a key resource on the bookshelves of the next generation of graduate students." Gary Paul Green, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"This Handbook powerfully demonstrates that rural spaces, rural societies and rural natures are at the very forefront of critical social science endeavour. Read this book, become a rural social scientist." Henry Buller, University of Exeter"An outstandingly comprehensive review of theory, research and the study of rural questions an essential reference for students, scholars, politicians, developers and rural activists." Imre Kovach, Institute for Political Sciences, Budapest

"This collection is an essential addition to any rural scholar s library and will be a critical resource for both established rural scholars and rising graduate students interested in rural research topics." Peter B. Nelson, Middlebury College"The Handbook of Rural Studies is a tour de force on changing rural people and places in a rapidly urbanizing global economy -- the most comprehensive interdisciplinary treatment of 'rural' available anywhere. This is absolutely must reading for social scientists concerned about finding a prominent place for 'rural' in scholarly discourse, institutional analysis, and public policy debates on the political economy of space." Daniel T. Lichter, Cornell University

The Handbook of Rural Studiesrepresents the vitality and theoretical innovation at work in rural studies. It shows how political economy and the "cultural turn" have led to very significant new thinking in the cultural representations of: rurality; nature; sustainability; new economies; power and rurality; new consumerism; and exclusion and rurality.

It is organized in three sections: approaches to rural studies; rural research: key theoretical co-ordinates and new rural relations.

In a rich and textured discussion, the Handbook of Rural Studies explains the key moments in which the theorization of culture, nature, politics, agency, and space in rural contexts have transmitted ideas back into wider social science."