Tony Harrison has lived the life of a professional snake catcher for twenty years. In this book, he introduces you to the reptiles most commonly encountered in our cities and towns, including some of the most venomous snakes on earth. Tony has spent his whole life surrounded by reptiles. His work and his animals are regularly featured on TV and in movies. That means he has a tale or two to tell. In Snake Catcher, Tony shares entertaining and informative stories, written by award-winning Australian writer, David Blissett. You are part of the action as Tony enters a suburban bedroom to bag a large and lethal Eastern Brown Snake. You will meet Tiger, the Lace Monitor who is afraid of heights. And you will find out what happens when you try to flush a venomous snake down the toilet. However, more than telling great stories and showing great pictures, this book has another purpose. Tony wants to dispel the myth that 'the only good snake is a dead snake.' He shares his insights into some truly fascinating reptiles, and gives common-sense advice about living safely with them.Snake Catcher includes information on:* The most commonly encountered Australian reptiles, complete with stunning full-colour photos.* What to do if you encounter a snake at home or in the bush.* How to discourage dangerous snakes from entering your property.* The benefits of having some snake species living nearby.* How to treat a snake bite.* How to protect your pets from run-ins with snakes.* Some of the rules about keeping reptiles for yourself.

This book features people from one of the most closed countries of today's world, where the passage of time resembles the passage of a caravan through the waterless desert. This world has been recreated by a true-born son of that mysterious country, a Turkmen who, at the will of fate, has now been living for a quarter of a century in snowy Scandinavia. Is that not why two different worlds come together in Ryazan horseradish and Tula gingerbread, to come apart in Love in Lilac, in which a student from the non-free world falls in love with a girl from the West? In the story Death of the Snake Catcher, an old snake catcher meets one on one with a giant cobra in the heart of the desert. In the dialogue between them the author unveils the age-old interdependence of Man and untamed nature, where the fear and mistrust of the strong and the hopes and apprehensions of the weak change places but co-exist as ever. Egyptian night of fear, in which a boy goes to an Eastern bazaar and falls into the clutches of depraved forces, is created in the writer's characteristic style of magical realism, while the novella Altynai celebrates first love, radiant and sad, pure as virgin snow. Now mythical, now lyrical, Welsapar's characters face life's injustice with a surprising optimism and fortitude. The intense Asiatic colour not only of nature but of human feelings and relationships, is expressed by the author in striking, expressive language making the reader unable to close the book until the last page.

A malfunctioning weathervane forces the wind to realign itself. A collector travels all over the world tracking down tools used in crimes against corpses. A gardener frets over the consequences of stealing the Navab of Lucknow’s prized myna. Minutiae and mystery form the warp and weft of Naiyer Masud’s densely woven, enchantingly hypnotic stories, combining precisely delineated characters and objects with accounts of inexplicable phenomena and the arcane arts. Compiled and introduced by the acclaimed Urdu scholar Muhammad Umar Memon, this edition collects all thirty-five of Masud’s stories for the first time, establishing him as one of the most original voices to emerge in world literature in the past few decades.