A fascinating look at North America's famous natural spectacles Bird migration captivates us. Where are the birds going? How far will they fly? How do they know when it's time to leave -- and how will they know when to return? Stan Tekiela has been studying and photographing birds of North America for more than 30 years. Now, the award-winning author and naturalist presents his insightful observations about migration and showcases it with his amazing images in a one-of-a-kind coffee-table book. Stan's photographs capture the birds as they migrate and depict behaviors that are sure to surprise and delight you, while the text makes for easy yet informative browsing. From the small, night-flying songbirds to the large, day-flying waterfowl and raptors, you'll develop a new appreciation for our incredible migrators in the United States and Canada.
Adventure Publications
|
9781591938149
|
Paperback
Rain
By Barnett, Cynthia
Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science - the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains - with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River.It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey's mopes and Kurt Cobain's grunge. Rain is also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume. Now, after thousands of years spent praying for rain or worshiping it; burning witches at the stake to stop rain or sacrificing small children to bring it; mocking rain with irrigated agriculture and cities built in floodplains; even trying to blast rain out of the sky with mortars meant for war, humanity has finally managed to change the rain. Only not in ways we intended. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes increasingly severe storms and drought, Barnett shows rain to be a unifying force in a fractured world. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.From the Hardcover edition.
Crown Publishers
|
9780804137096
|
Print book
Tiny But Mighty
By Shaw, Hannah
*A New York Times Bestseller* #1 National BestsellerIndie BestsellerFrom Kitten Lady, the professional kitten rescuer, humane educator, animal advocate, and owner of the popular Instagram @kittenxlady comes the definitive book on saving the most vulnerable - and adorable - feline population: newborn kittens.Hannah Shaw, better known as Kitten Lady, has dedicated her life to saving the tiniest felines, but one doesn't have to be a professional kitten rescuer to change - and save - lives. In Tiny but Mighty, Hannah not only outlines the dangers newborn kittens face and how she combats them, but how you can help every step of the way, from fighting feline overpopulation on the streets to fostering unweaned kittens, from combating illness to combating compassion fatigue, from finding a vet to finding the purrfect forever home. Filled with information on animal welfare, instructional guides, and personal rescue stories of kittens like Chloe, Tidbit, Hank, and Badger - not to mention hundreds of adorable kitten photos - Tiny but Mighty is the must-have kitten book for cat lovers, current-and-future rescuers, foster parents, activists, and advocates.
Plume
|
9781524744069
|
Hardcover
Fishing
By Fagan, Brian M
Humanity's last major source of food from the wild, and how it enabled and shaped the growth of civilization In this history of fishing - not as sport but as sustenance - archaeologist and best-selling author Brian Fagan argues that fishing was an indispensable and often overlooked element in the growth of civilization. It sustainably provided enough food to allow cities, nations, and empires to grow, but it did so with a different emphasis. Where agriculture encouraged stability, fishing demanded movement. It frequently required a search for new and better fishing grounds; its technologies, centered on boats, facilitated movement and discovery; and fish themselves, when dried and salted, were the ideal food - lightweight, nutritious, and long-lasting - for traders, travelers, and conquering armies. This history of the long interaction of humans and seafood tours archaeological sites worldwide to show readers how fishing fed human settlement, rising social complexity, the development of cities, and ultimately the modern world.
Yale University Press
|
9780300215342
|
Hardcover
The Alps
By O'shea, Stephen
A thrilling blend of contemporary travelogue and historical narrative about the Alps from "a graceful and passionate writer" (Washington Post) .For centuries the Alps have seen the march of armies, the flow of pilgrims and Crusaders, the feats of mountaineers, and the dreams of engineers?and some 14 million people live among their peaks today. In The Alps, Stephen O'Shea takes readers up and down these majestic mountains, battling his own fear of heights to journey through a 500-mile arc across France, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia.O'Shea, whose style has been hailed for its "engaging combination of candid first-person travel writing and absorbing historical narrative" (Chicago Sun-Times) , whisks readers along more than 2,000 years of Alpine history. As he travels pass-by-pass through the mountains, he tells great stories of those (real and imagined) who have passed before him, from Hannibal to Hitler, Frankenstein's monster to Sherlock Holmes, Napoleon to Nietzsche, William Tell to James Bond. He explores the circumstances behind Hannibal and his elephants' famous crossing in 218 BCE; he reveals how the Alps have profoundly influenced culture from Heidi to The Sound of Music; and he visits iconic sites, including the Reichenbach Falls, where Arthur Conan Doyle staged Sherlock Holmes's death scene with Professor Moriarty; Caporetto, the bloody site of the Italians' retreat in World War I; and the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's aerie of a vacation home.O'Shea delves into Alpine myths and legends, such as the lopsided legs of the dahu, the fictitious goatlike creature of the mountains, and reveals why the beloved St. Bernard dog is so often depicted with a cask hanging below its neck. Throughout, he immerses himself in the communities he visits, engagingly recounting his adventures with contemporary road trippers, watchmakers, salt miners, cable-car operators, and yodelers. 4 maps
W W Norton
|
9780393246858
|
Hardcover
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants
By Mancuso, Stefano
Do plants have intelligence? Do they have memory? Are they better problem solvers than people? The Revolutionary Genius of Plants - a fascinating, paradigm-shifting work that upends everything you thought you knew about plants - makes a compelling scientific case that these and other astonishing ideas are all true.Plants make up eighty percent of the weight of all living things on earth, and yet it is easy to forget that these innocuous, beautiful organisms are responsible for not only the air that lets us survive, but for many of our modern comforts: our medicine, food supply, even our fossil fuels. On the forefront of uncovering the essential truths about plants, world-renowned scientist Stefano Mancuso reveals the surprisingly sophisticated ability of plants to innovate, to remember, and to learn, offering us creative solutions to the most vexing technological and ecological problems that face us today.
Atria Books
|
9781501187858
|
Hardcover
A Complete Guide to Arctic Wildlife
By Sale, Richard
The most comprehensive field guide to Arctic wildlife. This is the ideal guidebook to the wildlife of the Arctic, which is undergoing such a perilous change. Polar expert Richard Sale describes the ecological and human dynamics of the Arctic as a whole, with detailed information about the peoples of the region and their history. He also discusses the future for the region and its wildlife, severely threatened by both climatic change and the overwhelming pollution created by humankind. Following sections on Arctic geology, geography, speciation and biogeography, the book provides extensive field coverage of all the region's mammals and birds. In-depth information on each species includes notes on identification, size, voice, distribution, diet, breeding, taxonomy and more.
Firefly Books; Reprint edition
|
9781770851290
|
Paperback
Hiking & Backpacking Santa Barbara & Ventura
By Carey, Craig R.
Majestic waterfalls, sweeping vistas, granite-clad ridges, and hot springs -- the southern Los Padres National Forest stretches across Southern California's incomparable scenery. Let local author Craig R. Carey lead you through the best of this varied terrain. Hiking & Backpacking Santa Barbara & Ventura presents nearly 100 of the finest routes between Gaviota Pass and Lake Piru. Explore lush trails above Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Ventura, Ojai, Santa Paula, Fillmore, and Piru. Plan a day hike, a weekend backpacking trip, or a deep backcountry journey through stretches of the Chumash, San Rafael, Dick Smith, Sespe, and Matilija wildernesses. This guide provides the information you need to plan and implement your next hiking and backpacking adventure! Inside You'll Find 98 of the top routes in California's second-largest national forest Day trips, weekend excursions, and deep backcountry treks Detailed section maps and GPS coordinates Waypoints, camps, trailhead directions, and permit information Recommendations for hiking with children .
Wilderness Press; 2nd edition
|
9780899979076
|
Paperback
Rough Beauty
By Auvinen, Karen
In the bestselling tradition of Cheryl Strayed's Wild and Helen MacDonald's H Is for Hawk, a stunning, inspirational memoir from an award-winning poet who ventures into the wilderness to seek answers to life's big questions and finds her way back after losing everything she thought she needed.During a difficult time, Karen Auvinen flees to a primitive cabin in the Rockies to live in solitude as a writer and to embrace all the beauty and brutality nature has to offer. When a fire incinerates every word she has ever written and all of her possessions - except for her beloved dog Elvis, her truck, and a few singed artifacts - Karen embarks on a heroic journey to reconcile her desire to be alone with her need for community. In the evocative spirit of works by Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich, and Mary Oliver, Karen's rich and compulsively readable memoir is as much an inward as it is an outward pilgrimage. Her pursuit of solace and salvation by shedding trivial ties and living in close harmony with nature, along with her account of finding community and love, is sure to resonate with all of us who long for meaning and deeper connection. Rough Beauty is a luminous, lyric exploration of and homage to her forty seasons in the mountains, embracing the unpredictability and grace of living intimately with the forces of nature while making peace with her own wildness.
Bird Migration
By Tekiela, Stan
A fascinating look at North America's famous natural spectacles Bird migration captivates us. Where are the birds going? How far will they fly? How do they know when it's time to leave -- and how will they know when to return? Stan Tekiela has been studying and photographing birds of North America for more than 30 years. Now, the award-winning author and naturalist presents his insightful observations about migration and showcases it with his amazing images in a one-of-a-kind coffee-table book. Stan's photographs capture the birds as they migrate and depict behaviors that are sure to surprise and delight you, while the text makes for easy yet informative browsing. From the small, night-flying songbirds to the large, day-flying waterfowl and raptors, you'll develop a new appreciation for our incredible migrators in the United States and Canada.
Rain
By Barnett, Cynthia
Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science - the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains - with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River. It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey's mopes and Kurt Cobain's grunge. Rain is also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume. Now, after thousands of years spent praying for rain or worshiping it; burning witches at the stake to stop rain or sacrificing small children to bring it; mocking rain with irrigated agriculture and cities built in floodplains; even trying to blast rain out of the sky with mortars meant for war, humanity has finally managed to change the rain. Only not in ways we intended. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes increasingly severe storms and drought, Barnett shows rain to be a unifying force in a fractured world. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.From the Hardcover edition.
Tiny But Mighty
By Shaw, Hannah
*A New York Times Bestseller* #1 National BestsellerIndie BestsellerFrom Kitten Lady, the professional kitten rescuer, humane educator, animal advocate, and owner of the popular Instagram @kittenxlady comes the definitive book on saving the most vulnerable - and adorable - feline population: newborn kittens.Hannah Shaw, better known as Kitten Lady, has dedicated her life to saving the tiniest felines, but one doesn't have to be a professional kitten rescuer to change - and save - lives. In Tiny but Mighty, Hannah not only outlines the dangers newborn kittens face and how she combats them, but how you can help every step of the way, from fighting feline overpopulation on the streets to fostering unweaned kittens, from combating illness to combating compassion fatigue, from finding a vet to finding the purrfect forever home. Filled with information on animal welfare, instructional guides, and personal rescue stories of kittens like Chloe, Tidbit, Hank, and Badger - not to mention hundreds of adorable kitten photos - Tiny but Mighty is the must-have kitten book for cat lovers, current-and-future rescuers, foster parents, activists, and advocates.
Fishing
By Fagan, Brian M
Humanity's last major source of food from the wild, and how it enabled and shaped the growth of civilization In this history of fishing - not as sport but as sustenance - archaeologist and best-selling author Brian Fagan argues that fishing was an indispensable and often overlooked element in the growth of civilization. It sustainably provided enough food to allow cities, nations, and empires to grow, but it did so with a different emphasis. Where agriculture encouraged stability, fishing demanded movement. It frequently required a search for new and better fishing grounds; its technologies, centered on boats, facilitated movement and discovery; and fish themselves, when dried and salted, were the ideal food - lightweight, nutritious, and long-lasting - for traders, travelers, and conquering armies. This history of the long interaction of humans and seafood tours archaeological sites worldwide to show readers how fishing fed human settlement, rising social complexity, the development of cities, and ultimately the modern world.
The Alps
By O'shea, Stephen
A thrilling blend of contemporary travelogue and historical narrative about the Alps from "a graceful and passionate writer" (Washington Post) .For centuries the Alps have seen the march of armies, the flow of pilgrims and Crusaders, the feats of mountaineers, and the dreams of engineers?and some 14 million people live among their peaks today. In The Alps, Stephen O'Shea takes readers up and down these majestic mountains, battling his own fear of heights to journey through a 500-mile arc across France, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia.O'Shea, whose style has been hailed for its "engaging combination of candid first-person travel writing and absorbing historical narrative" (Chicago Sun-Times) , whisks readers along more than 2,000 years of Alpine history. As he travels pass-by-pass through the mountains, he tells great stories of those (real and imagined) who have passed before him, from Hannibal to Hitler, Frankenstein's monster to Sherlock Holmes, Napoleon to Nietzsche, William Tell to James Bond. He explores the circumstances behind Hannibal and his elephants' famous crossing in 218 BCE; he reveals how the Alps have profoundly influenced culture from Heidi to The Sound of Music; and he visits iconic sites, including the Reichenbach Falls, where Arthur Conan Doyle staged Sherlock Holmes's death scene with Professor Moriarty; Caporetto, the bloody site of the Italians' retreat in World War I; and the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's aerie of a vacation home.O'Shea delves into Alpine myths and legends, such as the lopsided legs of the dahu, the fictitious goatlike creature of the mountains, and reveals why the beloved St. Bernard dog is so often depicted with a cask hanging below its neck. Throughout, he immerses himself in the communities he visits, engagingly recounting his adventures with contemporary road trippers, watchmakers, salt miners, cable-car operators, and yodelers. 4 maps
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants
By Mancuso, Stefano
Do plants have intelligence? Do they have memory? Are they better problem solvers than people? The Revolutionary Genius of Plants - a fascinating, paradigm-shifting work that upends everything you thought you knew about plants - makes a compelling scientific case that these and other astonishing ideas are all true.Plants make up eighty percent of the weight of all living things on earth, and yet it is easy to forget that these innocuous, beautiful organisms are responsible for not only the air that lets us survive, but for many of our modern comforts: our medicine, food supply, even our fossil fuels. On the forefront of uncovering the essential truths about plants, world-renowned scientist Stefano Mancuso reveals the surprisingly sophisticated ability of plants to innovate, to remember, and to learn, offering us creative solutions to the most vexing technological and ecological problems that face us today.
A Complete Guide to Arctic Wildlife
By Sale, Richard
The most comprehensive field guide to Arctic wildlife. This is the ideal guidebook to the wildlife of the Arctic, which is undergoing such a perilous change. Polar expert Richard Sale describes the ecological and human dynamics of the Arctic as a whole, with detailed information about the peoples of the region and their history. He also discusses the future for the region and its wildlife, severely threatened by both climatic change and the overwhelming pollution created by humankind. Following sections on Arctic geology, geography, speciation and biogeography, the book provides extensive field coverage of all the region's mammals and birds. In-depth information on each species includes notes on identification, size, voice, distribution, diet, breeding, taxonomy and more.
Hiking & Backpacking Santa Barbara & Ventura
By Carey, Craig R.
Majestic waterfalls, sweeping vistas, granite-clad ridges, and hot springs -- the southern Los Padres National Forest stretches across Southern California's incomparable scenery. Let local author Craig R. Carey lead you through the best of this varied terrain. Hiking & Backpacking Santa Barbara & Ventura presents nearly 100 of the finest routes between Gaviota Pass and Lake Piru. Explore lush trails above Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Ventura, Ojai, Santa Paula, Fillmore, and Piru. Plan a day hike, a weekend backpacking trip, or a deep backcountry journey through stretches of the Chumash, San Rafael, Dick Smith, Sespe, and Matilija wildernesses. This guide provides the information you need to plan and implement your next hiking and backpacking adventure! Inside You'll Find 98 of the top routes in California's second-largest national forest Day trips, weekend excursions, and deep backcountry treks Detailed section maps and GPS coordinates Waypoints, camps, trailhead directions, and permit information Recommendations for hiking with children .
Rough Beauty
By Auvinen, Karen
In the bestselling tradition of Cheryl Strayed's Wild and Helen MacDonald's H Is for Hawk, a stunning, inspirational memoir from an award-winning poet who ventures into the wilderness to seek answers to life's big questions and finds her way back after losing everything she thought she needed.During a difficult time, Karen Auvinen flees to a primitive cabin in the Rockies to live in solitude as a writer and to embrace all the beauty and brutality nature has to offer. When a fire incinerates every word she has ever written and all of her possessions - except for her beloved dog Elvis, her truck, and a few singed artifacts - Karen embarks on a heroic journey to reconcile her desire to be alone with her need for community. In the evocative spirit of works by Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich, and Mary Oliver, Karen's rich and compulsively readable memoir is as much an inward as it is an outward pilgrimage. Her pursuit of solace and salvation by shedding trivial ties and living in close harmony with nature, along with her account of finding community and love, is sure to resonate with all of us who long for meaning and deeper connection. Rough Beauty is a luminous, lyric exploration of and homage to her forty seasons in the mountains, embracing the unpredictability and grace of living intimately with the forces of nature while making peace with her own wildness.
Lonely Planet Costa Rica
By Planet., Lonely