We're big movie fans too, so we know just what you love to read about. You want all the amazing facts behind your favourite movies. Not just the regular stuff that is easy to find. And you don't just want to be entertained, you want to enrich your movie watching experience. So these pages are full of random facts about your favourite actors and actresses. We discovered the sometimes bizarre ways that they prepare for their roles, and the stories from the set you almost can't believe to be true. And we made sure to include some fun trivia questions for you to test your movie knowledge with. Are you up for the challenge? Of all the trivia books out there, this is surely going to be your favourite. We jammed over 400 of the most interesting facts into these pages. From the world of sci-fi, to the kings of comedy and the dramatic powerhouses of cinema...we've got it all! There's a little bit of everything. TV trivia, crazy sound effects, some little known Hollywood history, and of course, we had to include some Star Wars trivia as well. Keep an eye out for an easy-to-miss cameo from your favourite droids! So are you ready to learn the secrets from the Hollywood vault? Good, because we're ready to share them! Enjoy the ride!

    Helen Macdonald's bestselling debut H is for Hawk brought the astonishing story of her relationship with goshawk Mabel to global critical acclaim and announced Macdonald as one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers. H is for Hawk won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction and the Costa Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, launching poet and falconer Macdonald as our preeminent nature essayist, with a semi-regular column in the New York Times Magazine.In Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing songbirds from the Empire State Building as they migrate through the Tribute of Light, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk's poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds' nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife. By one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers, Vesper Flights is a captivating and foundational book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make sense of the world around us.

    In Beloved Beasts, acclaimed science journalist Michelle Nijhuis traces the movement’s history: from early battles to save charismatic species such as the American bison and bald eagle to today’s global effort to defend life on a larger scale.She describes the vital role of scientists and activists such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson as well as lesser-known figures in conservation history; she reveals the origins of vital organizations like the Audubon Society and the World Wildlife Fund; she explores current efforts to protect species such as the whooping crane and the black rhinoceros; and she confronts the darker side of conservation, long shadowed by racism and colonialism.As the destruction of other species continues and the effects of climate change escalate, Beloved Beasts charts the ways conservation is becoming a movement for the protection of all species—including our own.

    Join him as he travels across five continents for an up-close view of the astonishing variety and fascinating behavior of rainforest plants and trees, reptiles, birds, amphibians, insects, and mammals.

    These torchlight adventures have since inspired a generation of scientists, and his research is still considered useful today. In The Secret Life of Wombats, James Woodford pursues Nicholson's story and embarks on his own journey to uncover the true nature of our most intriguing marsupial."Woodford has done the research, he has read widely, spoken with the major wombat pundits and with the lay observers. He has travelled to gain direct experience of all species...I know more about wombats than I did, and retain some stark images which I hope never to lose." - Sunday Age.

    During her journey, she meets otter experts, representatives of the Environment Agency, conservationists, ecologists, walkers, Henry Williamson's family, Gavin Maxwell's heir, zoo keepers, fishermen, scientists, hunters and poets. Above all she learns how to track and be around otters, and that the stillness required to actually see this shy animal can bring many unasked-for wonders.Written in mesmerising prose, Otter Country establishes Darlington as a prominent voice in the new generation of British nature writers.

    Photographer Glen Denny was a key figure in this golden age of climbing, capturing pioneering feats on camera while tackling challenging ascents himself.In entertaining short pieces enlivened by his iconic black-and-white images of Yosemite's big wall legends, Denny reveals a young man's coming of age and provides a vivid look at Yosemite’s early climbing culture. He relates such precarious achievements as hauling water in glass gallon jugs up the east face of Washington Column, nailing the 750-foot Rostrum in a punishing heat wave, and dangling overnight on El Capitan’s Dihedral Wall in a lightning storm. Each true tale captures the spirit of historic Camp 4, where Denny and others plan the next big climb while living on the cheap and dodging park rangers.

    In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT.David Quammen chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them—such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health.

    As Gierach says, “The secret places are the soul of fishing.” Hearing about a new one never fails to entice us. And so Where the Trout Are All as Long as Your Leg transports the reader to the best of these places, where the fish are always bigger and the hatches last forever. After all, it’s these magical places that Gierach so vividly evokes that remind us how precious—and precarious—are the unspoiled havens of the natural world.

    Here they met and studied unique animals and were confronted with danger from drought, fire, storms, and the animals they loved. This best-selling book is for both travelers and animal lovers.

    Following the story of marine biologist and animal advocate at the Humane Society of the US, Naomi Rose, Kirby tells the gripping story of the two-decade fight against PR-savvy SeaWorld, which came to a head with the tragic death of trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010. Kirby puts that horrific animal-on-human attack in context. Brancheau’s death was the most publicized among several brutal attacks that have occurred at Sea World and other marine mammal theme parks. Death at SeaWorld introduces real people taking part in this debate, from former trainers turned animal rights activists to the men and women that champion SeaWorld and the captivity of whales. In section two the orcas act out. And as the story progresses and orca attacks on trainers become increasingly violent, the warnings of Naomi Rose and other scientists fall on deaf ears, only to be realized with the death of Dawn Brancheau. Finally he covers the media backlash, the eyewitnesses who come forward to challenge SeaWorld’s glossy image, and the groundbreaking OSHA case that challenges the very idea of keeping killer whales in captivity and may spell the end of having trainers in the water with the ocean’s top predators.

      Just after Jean Baur adopted a rescue dog, Bella, she lost her job at sixty-five. She decided to enroll Bella in a certified therapy-dog class. This new work, visiting hospital patients with her therapy job, gave Jean hope and purpose.   As Bella’s work expanded to nursing homes and elementary schools, the journey into the world of therapy-dog work allowed Jean and Bella to help others. They met an Alzheimer’s patient who learned to smile again after Bella took a treat from her hand. They befriended a six-year-old boy with autism who previously had a deep fear of dogs. Bella also coaxed an uncommunicative hospital patient to open up again after she jumped into bed with him.   National award-winning author Kim Kavin says Joy Unleashed “isn’t just another book about a dog and a person rescuing one another. It’s about how, together, Jean and Bella share their beautiful gift with countless other people who so desperately need to smile.”

    It considers the diversity and biology of bees, including their peculiar sociosexual arrangements (pity the poor drone), their quirky relationships with flowers, and their startling mental abilities: What are we to make of insects that communicate through symbolic dances? The book also addresses the mysterious syndrome known as colony collapse disorder and identifies opportunities for the conservation of pollinators.Enriched with cultural sidebars and complemented by a stunning collection of images, Bees is a must-read for conservationists, gardeners, and everyone else who cares about the world around them.Published in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation.Also available in paperback.

    America's sweetheart, impassioned lifelong animal welfare advocate, and New York Times-bestselling author Betty White offers intimate and funny stories about her animal friends at the zoo, enhanced by gorgeous four-color photographs.

    facilities. For Hargrove, becoming an orca trainer fulfilled a childhood dream. However, as his experience with the whales deepened, Hargrove came to doubt that their needs could ever be met in captivity. When two fellow trainers were killed by orcas in marine parks, Hargrove decided that SeaWorld's wildly popular programs were both detrimental to the whales and ultimately unsafe for trainers.After leaving SeaWorld, Hargrove became one of the stars of the controversial documentary Blackfish. The outcry over the treatment of SeaWorld's orca has now expanded beyond the outlines sketched by the award-winning documentary, with Hargrove contributing his expertise to an advocacy movement that is convincing both federal and state governments to act.In Beneath the Surface, Hargrove paints a compelling portrait of these highly intelligent and social creatures, including his favorite whales Takara and her mother Kasatka, two of the most dominant orcas in SeaWorld. And he includes vibrant descriptions of the lives of orcas in the wild, contrasting their freedom in the ocean with their lives in SeaWorld.Hargrove's journey is one that humanity has just begun to take-toward the realization that the relationship between the human and animal worlds must be radically rethought.