Book picks similar to
Stickwork by Patrick Dougherty
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organic-and-natural-architecture
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Exploring the Titanic: How the Greatest Ship Ever Lost—Was Found
Robert D. Ballard - 1988
"Captures the drama of both the night of the sinking as well as . . . the discovery of the great ship. . . . Stunning".--"School Library Journal", starred review. Full-color illustrations.
The Stars: A New Way to See Them
H.A. Rey - 1952
This is a clear, vivid text with charts and maps showing the positions of the constellations the year round.
Shadowplay (Spellmonger: Legacy and Secrets Book 1)
Terry Mancour - 2021
National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry: More than 200 Poems With Photographs That Float, Zoom, and Bloom!
J. Patrick Lewis - 2015
Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis curates an exuberant poetic celebration of the natural world in this stellar collection of nature poems. From trickling streams to deafening thrunderstorms to soaring mountains, discover majestic photography perfectly paired with contemporary (such as Billy Collins), classics (such as Robert Frost), and never-before-published works.
Boom, Bust, Boom: A Story About Copper, the Metal that Runs the World
Bill Carter - 2012
For most of recorded history, this remarkably pliable and sturdy substance has proven invaluable: not only did the ancient Romans build their empire on mining copper but Christopher Columbus protected his ships from rot by lining their hulls with it. Today, the metal can be found in every house, car, airplane, cell phone, computer, and home appliance the world over, including in all the new, so-called green technologies. Yet the history of copper extraction and our present relationship with the metal are fraught with profound difficulties. Copper mining causes irrevocable damage to the Earth, releasing arsenic, cyanide, sulfuric acid, and other deadly pollutants into the air and water. And the mines themselves have significant effects on the economies and wellbeing of the communities where they are located. With Red Summer and Fools Rush In, Bill Carter has earned a reputation as an on-the-ground journalist adept at connecting the local elements of a story to its largest consequences. Carter does this again—and brilliantly—in Boom, Bust, Boom, exploring in an entertaining and fact-rich narrative the very human dimension of copper extraction and the colossal implications the industry has for every one of us. Starting in his own backyard in the old mining town of Bisbee, Arizona—where he discovers that the dirt in his garden contains double the acceptable level of arsenic—Bill Carter follows the story of copper to the controversial Grasberg copper mine in Indonesia; to the “ring” at the London Metal Exchange, where a select group of traders buy and sell enormous amounts of the metal; and to an Alaskan salmon run threatened by mining. Boom, Bust, Boom is a highly readable account—part social history, part mining-town exploration, and part environmental investigation. Page by page, Carter blends the personal and the international in a narrative that helps us understand the paradoxical relationship we have with a substance whose necessity to civilization costs the environment and the people who mine it dearly. The result is a work of first-rate journalism that fascinates on every level.
Hugh Glass, Mountain Man
Robert M. McClung - 1990
A fictionalized biography of the legendary hero of the Old West, who as a fur trapper in 1823, survived an attack by a grizzly bear.
The Dust Has Grown Flowers
Fiphie - 2017
Known for her art journals, Fiphie conjures up a beautiful concept of combining art and poetry, gifting the reader a unique compilation of her works. In her debut, Fiphie touches on subjects such as love, heartbreak, loss, death, trauma, femininity, longing and wanderlust. She creates powerful images which let the reader immerse deeply into her world of thought.Please note that The Dust Has Grown Flowers is exclusively available on fiphie.com/shop/
Go the F**k to Sleep
Adam Mansbach - 2011
You know where you can go? The f**k to sleep.”Go the Fuck to Sleep is a book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland. Profane, affectionate, and radically honest, it captures the familiar—and unspoken—tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. Read by a host of celebrities, from Samuel L. Jackson to Jennifer Garner, this subversively funny bestselling storybook will not actually put your kids to sleep, but it will leave you laughing so hard you won’t care.
Material World: A Global Family Portrait
Peter Menzel - 1994
At the end of each visit, photographer and family collaborated on a remarkable portrait of the family members outside their home, surrounded by all of their possessions—a few jars and jugs for some, an explosion of electronic gadgetry for others. Vividly portraying the look and feel of the human condition everywhere on Earth, this internationally acclaimed bestseller puts a human face on the issues of population, environment, social justice, and consumption as it illuminates the crucial question facing our species today: Can all six billion of us have all the things we want?
Good Faeries/Bad Faeries
Brian Froud - 1998
That was before they burst upon my life as vibrant, luminous beings, permeating my art and my everyday existence, causing glorious havoc..." In the long-awaited sequel to the international bestseller "Faeries", artist Brian Froud rescues pixies, gnomes, and other faeries from the isolation of the nursery and the distance of history, bringing them into the present day with vitality and imagination. In this richly imagined new book, Brian reveals the secrets he has learned from the faeries-- what their noses and shoes look like, what mischief and what gentle assistance they can give, what their souls and their dreams are like.As it turns out, faeries aren't all sweetness and light. In addition to such good faeries as Dream Weavers and Faery Godmothers, Brian introduces us to a host of less well behaved creatures-- traditional bad faeries like Morgana le Fay, but also the Soul Shrinker and the Gloominous Doom. The faery kingdom, we find, is as subject to good and evil as the human realm. Brilliantly documenting both the dark and the light, "Good Faeries/Bad Faeries" presents a world of enchantment and magic that deeply compels the imagination.
The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention
William Rosen - 2010
In the process he tackles the question that has obsessed historians ever since: What made eighteenth-century Britain such fertile soil for inventors? Rosen’s answer focuses on a simple notion that had become enshrined in British law the century before: that people had the right to own and profit from their ideas. The result was a period of frantic innovation revolving particularly around the promise of steam power. Rosen traces the steam engine’s history from its early days as a clumsy but sturdy machine, to its coming-of-age driving the wheels of mills and factories, to its maturity as a transporter for people and freight by rail and by sea. Along the way we enter the minds of such inventors as Thomas Newcomen and James Watt, scientists including Robert Boyle and Joseph Black, and philosophers John Locke and Adam Smith—all of whose insights, tenacity, and ideas transformed first a nation and then the world. William Rosen is a masterly storyteller with a keen eye for the “aha!” moments of invention and a gift for clear and entertaining explanations of science. The Most Powerful Idea in the World will appeal to readers fascinated with history, science, and the hows and whys of innovation itself.
The Lost Spells
Robert Macfarlane - 2020
Now, The Lost Spells, a book kindred in spirit and tone, continues to re-wild the lives of children and adults.The Lost Spells evokes the wonder of everyday nature, conjuring up red foxes, birch trees, jackdaws, and more in poems and illustrations that flow between the pages and into readers’ minds. Robert Macfarlane’s spell-poems and Jackie Morris’s watercolour illustrations are musical and magical: these are summoning spells, words of recollection, charms of protection. To read The Lost Spells is to see anew the natural world within our grasp and to be reminded of what happens when we allow it to slip away.
Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders
Joshua Foer - 2016
Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan’s 45-year hole of fire called the Door of Hell, coffins hanging off a side of a cliff in the Philippines, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England.Atlas Obscura revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden, and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book you can open anywhere.
National Geographic Dinosaurs
Paul M. Barrett - 1998
Through dramatic graphics and age-appropriate text, this authoritative volume charts the discovery of all the main types of dinosaurs and reveals the latest details on how these creatures most likely looked, behaved, defended themselves, found food, cared for their young, and interacted. Stunning murals, based on scientific evidence, depict various dinosaurs in their habitats--beautifully complementing the color photographs, paintings, charts, and maps. Some 53 major types of dinosaurs are described, representing a wide range of physical structures, sizes, and lifestyles.The book presents recent discoveries and current scientific thought--including the dinosaur-bird connection, profiles of feathered dinosaurs, and theories on dinosaur extinction. Readers also see how today' s paleontologists obtain evidence, piece together clues, and continue to reconstruct life in prehistoric times.
The Shock of the New
Robert Hughes - 1980
More than 250 color photos.