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22 NORTH LEEDS LANTERN The Color of Blood by Brian Moore. 'Do you not think it a grievous sin for men of God to act like terrorists?', Cardinal Bem was asked. And being a good man, he answered, 'Yes', and paid accordingly. Set in Eastern Europe, this taut little thriller once again proves Brian Moore to be one of the finest novelists around. All quite red, if not exactly Christmassy. JR The Making of the African Queen by Katharine Hepburn. Katharine Hepburn's memory serves her well, in this her first book, as she recalls her love of adventure and the fun she had, albeit certain frustations, during the filming of the African Queen. She has included some great pictures of Rosie and Charlie Alnutt and of the old steamâ€"boat, taken in the heart of the African jungle. JR Paddle to the Amazon by Don Starkell and Charles Wilkins. As the dust-cover says, it was an ordinary 21 ft. fibreglass canoe, an ordinary family, a divorced father and two teenaged sons, but an extraordinary journey. From their home in Winnipeg, they paddled down the Mississippi, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, up the Orinoco river and down the Amazon to Belem at its mouth and not a soul to greet them. 12,000 miles and 23 months, looking the worse for wear and lucky to be alive, they had achieved what they set out to do and acquired a whole new understanding of life and of themselves. a truly epic journey. JR Dead Man's Mooring by Bill Knox. The fishermen of Sonas Bay on the Island of Skye are enmeshed in war with a Canadian developer who is apparently intent upon taking over their land and waters for his own dark purpose. Webb Carrick, skipper of a fishery patrol launch is sent to settle the dispute. Dead bodies appear, skulduggery is rife and the pace increases until in a raging storm Car-rick disc0vers the reason for the upheaval. Scattered with sea going terms that may bewilder the landlubbers among us, it is a fast moving story that builds up to an exciting finish. BS Deadly Sonata by Paul Myers. One critic said that "Paul Myers bids fair to becoming to music what Dick Francis is to racing". His prediction is becoming a happy fact. The fourth of his musical thriller books is tense and as full of excitement as the first three. In this case Viktor Kavarin a brilliant young Russian pianist persuades Mark Holland to help him and his sister to escape to the Western world. Mark agrees but violence follows them all the way and in the end the plot has an unexpected twist, naturally! Good reading, if you enjoy it try any of the others listed on the back cover of this book. BS A this year. GARDENING LETTERS by Doug Green As this is the Christmas edition of the Lantern, I thought I would wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Andrea and I and all of our children hope that the Christmas spirit will visit your homes this year. Sometimes it ' 5 hard writing a gardening column at Christmas time because it seems that Poinsettias are the flower to be talked about and every year it seems I have focussed on some aspect of growing this plant. Having gotten that sentence strung out, let me say only one thing about poinsettias They are not poisonous. This canard has circulated for many years after a child got sick during the Christmas season. There was some uncertainty about whether or not the child actually ate a leaf, but blaming *he plant was easy. Poinsettias may be irritating to the gastroâ€"intestinal tract but apparently you have to eat almost the entire plant before you'd get a serious stomach ache. Let me suggest that if anyone actually eats a whole poinsettia plant they deserve a stomach ache. The modern varieties keep better than the older ones but give the plant lots of light, keep it out of drafts and keep it slightly damp. There, I've said enough about poinsettias. Enjoy them. Last month, I wrote about Johnny's seed company and suggested that you write them for their catalogue. I also gave you the resultss of our tomato taste tests. This month, I thought that I would give you the results of some of our flower trials. As usual, we ' grew several different kinds of Marigolds for trial purposes. Our overall Winner was the Perfection series. This is a new Marigold for the 18" size range. It will be available for the plant grew to about 36 trade this year and we inches tall, with huge Will be using it to Yellowyâ€"red single dahlia replace the Space Age type blooms. It started (Moonshot and Apollo) 'blooming at the end of series. The Perfections june and never stopped (Yellow. Geld and , for the rest of the Orange had g°°d Size summer. It turned into a flowers. held their veritable bush in size flowers upright and did and the blooms were not fall over like the medium heavy all over Space Age Series“ the plant. Its stem is Compared to the Inca brinle though and one of series which We have the big windstorms early also sold, the Perfections in the summer knocked it held their flowers more over. It recovered from upright and did not this by resprouting from have the green centres the lower half.‘ If you common to the Incas. garden in a windy area, Some of our early you may want to stake it customers bought some or grow it in a tomato extras before the Space cage, 1 have never Age series so the colours really spent a lot time must be nicer than the growing Four O'Clocks Old 0ne5- The dainty but this year, Andrea Marietta marigold was put a row of them in interesting. it had tiny front of the Tithonia and flowers and bloomed they were splendid. I madly except for the think we'll grow a lot of mid-summer dOldrumS them next year. A really when it slowed down nice foliage plant also considerably. A shorter did well, the 'Dark marigold. it is great for Ruffles Basil made a rock gardens. BurpeeS nice dark purple foliage White Marigold was a tucked up against some disaster. It started Paprika Marigolds. The growing very well and nice thing about this then seemed to peter out plant is that you eat it before really setting a as well. The Polka Dot lot of flowers. It was Plant which is well know really gangly in the to windowsill gardeners greenhouses before it got made a good show in the planted out. Do not look ’ bedding plant outdoor for this one again. beds. I'm not really keen on the pink colour, but if it's your thing - try this plant _ for something different. _ ‘ . Those are a few of the better plants that .we grew. ,,Iast Myeara-w and which did'really well-for: us. You may want to try Superstar hybrid was another trial planting that did really well for us here and yellowâ€"gold colour was a knockout. I am not sure if this has been released to the trade yet but if it has, look for it in the seed a few of them too catalogues or As 1 said at the u greenhouses where you beginning of the article, shop. Aurora Gold was I hope that your anOIher blg Winner for Christmas is a good one. us here laSt Summerv Merry Christmas it ' s a mid size plant - ' and has been released to the trade so you'll see it in the greenhouses next spring. In the short categories, we have not found anything to compare to the Boy series although the seed companies are promising something for us to try this year which they claim will be better. We'll keep you posted. We also grew some Tithonia this year for the first time. This P.0. Box 189 Elgin 0n KOG 1E0 359-5159 YOUR CHRISTIAN SUPPLY CENTRE Hours: Monâ€"Fri . 9-5 Sat. 9â€"Noon Christmas Gifts, Cards, Bibles, Sunday School Gifts and Awards, Music, Cassettes, Books on Cassette, Videos for all ages. ' Come choose your GIFT from under our Christmas tree. 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