Book picks similar to
World Without Sun by Jacques-Yves Cousteau
non-fiction
nature
j-practice
oceans-marine-life
100 Years of Leeds United: 1919-2019
Daniel Chapman - 2018
Since its foundation in 1919, Leeds United Football Club has seen more ups and downs than most, rising to global fame through an inimitable and uncompromising style in the 70s, clinching the last Division One title of the pre-Sky Sports era in 1992, before becoming the epitome of financial mismanagement at the start of the 21st century. Despite this demise, United remains one of the best supported – and most divisive – clubs in football, with supporters’ clubs dotted across the globe. In 100 Years of Leeds United, Chapman delves deep into the archives to discover the lesser-known episodes, providing fresh context to the folkloric tales that have shaped the club we know today, painting the definitive picture of the West Yorkshire giants.
The Heart of Things: A Midwestern Almanac
John Hildebrand - 2014
Life is more complicated than that." " In this remarkable book of days, John Hildebrand charts the overlapping rings--home, town, countryside--of life in the Midwest. Like E. B. White, Hildebrand locates the humor and drama in ordinary life: church suppers, Friday night football, outdoor weddings, garden compost, family reunions, roadside memorials, camouflage clothing. In these wry, sharply observed essays, the Midwest isn't The Land Time Forgot but a more complicated (and vastly more interesting) place where the good life awaits once we figure exactly out what it means. From his home range in northwestern Wisconsin, Hildebrand attempts to do just that by boiling down a calendar year to its rich marrow of weather, animals, family, home--in other words, all the things that matter.
Jaguars and Electric Eels (Penguin Great Journeys)
Alexander von Humboldt - 1853
This part of his matchless narrative of adventure and scientific research focuses on his time in Venezuela - in the Llanos and on the Orinoco River - riding and paddling, restlessly and happily noting the extraordinary things on every hand. Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries -- but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own.
Achieving The Impossible: A Fearless Hero. A Fragile Earth
Lewis Pugh - 2010
Lewis Gordon Pugh recounts his action-packed life, including his SAS training and his swim at the North Pole. He takes examples from his own life to show how we can all achieve our goals.
Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People
Mark Owens - 2006
The award-winning zoologists and pioneering conservationists describe their work in the remote and ruggedly beautiful Luangwa Valley, in northeastern Zambia. There they studied the mysteries of the elephant population’s recovery after poaching, discovering remarkable similarities between humans and elephants. A young elephant named Gift provided the clue to help them crack the animals’ secret of survival. A stirring portrait of life in Africa, Secrets of the Savanna is a remarkable record of the Owenses' unique passions.
Quitting Plastic
Clara Williams Roldan - 2019
Anywhere you go, plastic is within easy reach - even in Antarctica and the North Pole.We didn't quit plastic overnight. In fact, it's still a work in progress. But along the way, we have learnt a lot by researching the issue from the grass roots up, speaking to people, and finding out what works and what doesn't. We answer the tricky questions, like 'How will I wash my hair?', 'Do I have to give up crackers?', 'What about my bin liner?' and 'Is this going to be expensive?' As we continue to remove throw-away plastics from our daily lives, we've discovered we're friendlier with our local communities, we're eating healthier food, and de-cluttering happens by itself. It feels great!
Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong on GMOs
Mark Lynas - 2018
Back in the 1990s--working undercover with his colleagues in the environmental movement--he would descend on trial sites of genetically modified crops at night and hack them to pieces. Two decades later, most people around the world--from New York to China--still think that 'GMO' foods are bad for their health or likely to damage the environment. But Mark has changed his mind. This book explains why.In 2013, in a world-famous recantation speech, Mark apologised for having destroyed GM crops. He spent the subsequent years touring Africa and Asia, and working with plant scientists who are using this technology to help smallholder farmers in developing countries cope better with pests, diseases and droughts.This book lifts the lid on the anti-GMO craze and shows how science was left by the wayside as a wave of public hysteria swept the world. Mark takes us back to the origins of the technology and introduces the scientific pioneers who invented it. He explains what led him to question his earlier assumptions about GM food, and talks to both sides of this fractious debate to see what still motivates worldwide opposition today. In the process he asks--and answers--the killer question: how did we all get it so wrong on GMOs?
That Wild Country: An Epic Journey through the Past, Present, and Future of America's Public Lands
Mark Kenyon - 2019
These vast expanses provide a home to wildlife populations, a vital source of clean air and water, and a haven for recreation.Since its inception, however, America’s public land system has been embroiled in controversy—caught in the push and pull between the desire to develop the valuable resources the land holds or conserve them. Alarmed by rising tensions over the use of these lands, hunter, angler, and outdoor enthusiast Mark Kenyon set out to explore the spaces involved in this heated debate, and learn firsthand how they came to be and what their future might hold.Part travelogue and part historical examination, That Wild Country invites readers on an intimate tour of the wondrous wild and public places that are a uniquely profound and endangered part of the American landscape.
The Soul of the Rhino: A Nepali Adventure with Kings and Elephant Drivers, Billionaires and Bureaucrats, Shamans and Scientists and the Indian Rhinoceros
Hemanta Mishra - 2008
The Soul of the Rhino is the spirited yet humble account of Mishra’s unique personal journey. Fresh out of university in the 1970s, Mishra embarks on his conservation work with the help of an ornery but steadfast elephant driver, the Nepalese royal family, and handfuls of like-minded scientists whose aim is to protect the animal in the foothills of the Himalayas. Yet, in spite of decades spent creating nature reserves and moving rhinos to protected areas, arm-wrestling politicians, and raising awareness for the cause, Mishra is still fearful about the future of the Indian Rhino. To this day, Nepal is overrun by armed insurgents, political violence, and poachers who could kill off this magnificent creature for good. Filled with candor and bittersweet humor, Mishra re-creates his journey on behalf of the rhino, an ugly yet enchanting, terrifying yet delicate creature. The first book of its kind to delve into the multi-layered political labyrinths of South Asian wildlife conservation, and one man’s endurance in the face of it all, The Soul of the Rhino is sure to win over yourheart and soul.
To Live Outside the Law: Caught by Operation Julie, Britain's Biggest Drugs Bust
Leaf Fielding - 2011
The book opens with Leaf Fielding's arrest in a pre-dawn police raid and ends five years later with his release from jail.The narrative moves back and forth between the harsh world of prison and his previous life - from a childhood at a brutal boarding school onto undergraduate days and his LSD epiphany in the summer of love, 1967.Acid transformed him in an instant from nerdy scholar to footloose freak. His ten years of adventures in the hippie underground gave the title to this book - a quote from a Bob Dylan song - they also took him across Europe, to the Andes, to Indochina and on to the edge of the known universe. They also led inexorably to his downfall.
Evolution's Workshop: God & Science on the Galápagos Islands
Edward J. Larson - 1965
Isolated and desolate, they were largely overlooked by early explorers until Charles Darwin arrived there in the 1830s. It was Darwin who recognized that Galapagos' isolation and desolation were advantages: the paucity of species and lack of outside influences made the workings of natural selection crystal clear. Since then, every important advance and controversy in evolutionary thinking has had its reflection on the Galapagos. In every sense-intellectually, institutionally, and culturally-the history of science on these islands is a history of the way evolutionary science was done for the past 150 years. Evolution's Workshop tells the story of Darwin's explorations there; the fabulous Gilded Age expeditions, run from rich men's gigantic yachts, that featured rough-and-ready science during the day and black-tie dinners every night; the struggle for control of research on the Galapagos; the current efforts by "creation scientists" to use the Galapagos to undercut evolutionary teaching; and many other compelling stories.
Overheating: An Anthropology of Accelerated Change
Thomas Hylland Eriksen - 2016
Overheating offers a groundbreaking new way of looking at the problems of the Anthropocene, exploring crises of the environment, economy, and identity through an anthropological lens. Thomas Hylland Eriksen argues that while each of these crises is global in scope, they are nonetheless perceived and responded to locally—and that once we realize that, we begin to see the contradictions that abound between the standardizing forces of global capitalism and the socially embedded nature of people and local practices. Only by acknowledging the primacy of the local, Eriksen shows, can we begin to even properly understand, let alone address, these problems on a global scale.
The King: A Biography of Clark Gable
Charles Samuels - 2015
The book traces Gable's life from its humble, hard-scrabble beginnings in Ohio, to his hard-work and determined efforts to achieve success on Broadway, to his meteoric rise to stardom in Hollywood, his time spent in the Army Air Force in Europe, and his many loves, including Carole Lombard who was tragically killed in an airplane crash in 1942. The King paints an intimate, contemporary portrait of Clark Gable the man, both on and off camera, and ends with Gable's work on his last film, The Misfits, and his subsequent decline in health and his death on November 16, 1960, at age 59.
Final Exams: True Crime Cases from Cyril Wecht
Cyril H. Wecht - 2013
Wecht, M.D., J.D., one of America’s most respected forensic pathologists. Coauthored by crime writer Dawna Kaufmann, Final Exams explores both the technical and the human side of murder. From the heartbreaking case of abducted child, Jessica Lunsford, held captive within shouting distance of her loved ones, to the peculiar story of a murder for hire with a most unlikely victim, Final Exams takes the reader behind the scenes. Secrets about the private lives of both predators and victims are revealed as the authors detail the events that turned rage to tragedy. Fans of CSI will appreciate how Wecht and Kaufmann share the real life process of solving crimes with clues left with the victim.