They would go to parties, listen to music, and show off their cars late into the night. But Brenda and her friends belonged to the Mara Salvatrucha--the MS-13--the most violent gang in America, and in addition to enjoying the things that all teenagers do, her friends were thieves, drug dealers, human traffickers, and murderers. A street gang that began in Los Angeles in the 1980s, the Mara Salvatrucha has spread across the United States and Central America with startling speed, boasting tens of thousands of members. They deal ruthlessly with competing gangs and any members who display disloyalty, often leaving a trail of dismembered corpses in their wake. They are poised to surpass the Mafia as the country's most organized criminal network. And by operating within the insular Central American immigrant communities, the Mara Salvatrucha has been able to easily elude law enforcement. All that changed when Brenda Paz turned informant for the FBI, exposing the incredible scope of the gang's operations. But Brenda's cooperation with the FBI was only the beginning. What followed is an extraordinary story of strength, intelligence, and incredible courage. This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha takes us into a dark and violent world that few people have seen, but is closer than you think.

    The bikes went from curiosity, to nuisance, to phenomenon. But until they caught the eye of journalist Kimball Taylor, only a small cadre of human smugglers―coyotes―and migrants could say how or why they’d gotten there. And only through Taylor’s obsession did another curious migratory pattern emerge: the bicycles’ movement through the black market, Hollywood, the prison system, and the military-industrial complex. This is the story of 7,000 bikes that made an incredible journey and one young man from Oaxaca who arrived at the border with nothing, built a small empire, and then vanished. Taylor follows the trail of the border bikes through some of society’s most powerful institutions, and, with the help of an unlikely source, he reconstructs the rise of one of Tijuana’s most innovative coyotes. Touching on immigration and globalization, as well as the history of the US/Mexico border,The Coyote’s Bicycle is at once an immersive investigation of an outrageous occurrence and a true-crime, rags-to-riches story.

    Richly researched and searchingly personal, The Feline Mystique uses history, science, art, and literature as touchpoints to explain and explore contemporary women's lives with their cats.From a glamorous tiger trainer to a feral-cat rescuer, from a show breeder to Simon and her own relationship with the gray longhair Cyrus, this book will introduce you to women both ferocious and nurturing and animals both whimsical and noble. It's a fresh, fascinating exploration of the timeless bond between women and cats, and will deepen your understanding of your relationship with your own feline-be he or she tiger or tabby.A cat person's answer to Pack of Two and The Secret Life of Dogs, The Feline Mystique is an eye-opening and soul-soothing book for all cat lovers.

    Among the ranks of these animals are a bear in the Canadian Rockies, an elephant in a circus traveling through Texas, a pig on a hog farm in North Carolina, and a dog living with his beloved owner in New York. As these four contend with the realities of who they were before the awareness, and who they must now become after it, they are each called to battle. The animals must then fight two wars: the one outside between mammals and humans, and the one inside each of their minds.

    What do Postman Pat, Tommy Cooper, Norman Wisdom and George Best have in common with being abandoned in a Costa Rican jungle after a severe bout of flatulence? Indeed, how are they also connected to trying to buy an Australian brewery just to get a beer, owning twenty-two cars, an American soccer team and a Swiss mail-order pornography company?The common feature is of course a certain Richard Wakeman.The Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star takes you, the privileged reader, on a trip of absurd excess, a cultural car crash of side-splitting hilarity and an unforgettable glimpse (again) into the life of one of Britain's most legendary showmen, rock stars and all-time great raconteurs.

    Deadly shapes bore down. Animal and man driven by one single thought. Kill or be killed. Neither wanted to die.Falsely accused of a terrible crime, impetuous young aristocrat Lord Dallas Acheson is forced to flee his native Scotland, leaving behind the only woman he has ever loved - Lady Lorna de Iongh. From that day onwards, he must learn to live a different life in a land where danger is an ever-present partner.Fate takes him to southern Africa and the emerging seaport of Durban, from where he sets off to trade and hunt, seeking his fortune in the little-travelled midlands of Natal and the wilds of Zululand. Tested to the limit, Dallas discovers more than he could have imagined.Married to a woman he doesn't love, he yearns to abandon the restraints of nineteenth-century society to be with Lorna. And when the Zulu war breaks out, he finds himself torn between old and new loyalties, required to be an enemy of the land that is now his true home.

    Primates and cetaceans, at first they appear very different. Yet both are large brained, intelligent mammals who exhibit complex communication and social patterns. This book studies these animals side by side and comes up with some perhaps surprising results, which teach us about another large brained mammal, man.

    So begins a strange adventure that lands Cormac in the back of a red pickup truck driven by a mysterious woman, takes him to a series of dog pounds and rescue shelters, and ultimately brings him to the suburbs of Connecticut. His owner, meanwhile, devastated by Cormac’s disappearance and trying to juggle a family, a book tour, and writing his new novel, becomes determined to solve the “dog-napping” case. With the help of the local veterinarian, bookstore colleagues, animal rescue employees, and old friends, he picks up on Cormac’s trail and watches his small-town community come together in search of his lost companion.Inspired by real events, and embellished only to serve the story through the spirit of imagination, Brewer has, as he says, “mainly told the truth in this story of losing my good dog Cormac.”

    Instead of turning away from the animal cruelty she came to witness, Sonia made the most courageous decision of her life: a commitment to change things.Driven by impulsive will and searing passion, Sonia left behind everything she knew and loved to search the planet for solutions to benefit animals, health, and the environment. Over the course of living with farmers, hitchhiking with strangers, and risking her life, she developed surprising insights and solutions—both about the food industry and herself.Lively and heartfelt, Sonia takes readers on an unforgettable adventure from top-secret egg warehouses in Canada to dairy feedlots in the United States, from farm offices in Mexico to lush pastures in Belize, from flocks of village chickens in Indonesia to factory farms in Malaysia.

    Award-winning writer and wildlife photographer Ian McAllister draws from his intimate observations of more than forty wolf packs along this rugged coastline over a seventeen-year period in this first-ever documentation of their fascinating, complex way of life. In a compelling narrative and more than 100 stunning photographs, McAllister captures these majestic animals fishing for salmon, stalking seals hauled out on rocks, playing on the beach, and raising their families. The Last Wild Wolves also describes the work of scientists whose recent findings have corroborated McAllister's own observations and the traditional knowledge gleaned by First Nations people over centuries—that these wolves are genetically distinct; unlike other wolves, they subsist on coastal prey and swim from island to island in their archipelago home. The Last Wild Wolves is a remarkable portrait of the unique lives of island wolves and an eloquent expression of just how much is at stake in their preservation. Copub: Greystone Books

    Walks become hikes and hikes become climbs, their adventures culminating in a rugged wilderness journey that teaches both Pukka and Ted something new about the dog-human partnership.Filled with stunning images of the West, Pukka is a love story as well as Ted’s take on raising a puppy. It will do pictorially what Merle did with words—show how dogs thrive when treated as peers while illustrating the many ways that any dog opens the door to our hearts.

    When Terrill adopts a wolfdog—part husky, part gray wolf—named Inyo to be her protector and fellow traveler, she is drawn to Inyo’s spark of wildness; compelled by the great responsibility, even danger, that accompanies the allure of the wild; and transformed by theextraordinary love she shares with Inyo, who teaches Terrill how to carve out a place for herself in the world. Over almost four years, Terrill and Inyo’s adventures veer between hilarious and heartbreaking. There are peaceful weekends spent hiking in snowy foothills, mirthful romps through dirty laundry, joyful adoptions of dog companions, and clashes brought on by the stress of caring for Inyo, insatiable without the stimulation of a life lived outdoors. Forced to move and accommodate the complaints of fearful neighbors and the desires of her space-craving wolfdog, Terrill must confront the reality of what she has done by trying to tame a part-wild animal. Driven to understand the differences between dogs and wolves, Terrill spent five years interviewing genetics experts, wolf biologists, dog trainers, and wolf rescuers in the United States, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, and Russia. The fascinating results of her investigation make Part Wild as informative as it is moving.A gifted writer able to capture the grace and power of the natural world, the complexity of scientific ideas, and the pulse of the human experience,Terrill has written a bittersweet memoir of the beauty and tragedy that comes from living with a measure of wildness.

    He made pilgrimages to true time capsules like a remote lagoon in Western Australia, spent time in research collections photographing forms of microscopic life, and even found ways to create visual parallels between the growth of organs in the human body and the patterns seen on the surface of the earth. The resulting volume is a glorious picture book of planet earth depicting the amazing biodiversity that surrounds us all. Lanting's true gift lies beyond his technical mastery: it is his eye for geometry in the beautiful chaos of nature that allows him to show us the world as it has never been seen before. From crabs to jellyfish, diatoms to vast geological formations, jungles to flowers, monkeys to human embryos, LIFE is a testament to the magical beauty of life in all its forms and is Lanting's most remarkable achievement to date. The photographer: Dutch-born Frans Lanting has been hailed as one of the great nature photographers of our time. For the past two decades he has documented wildlife and our relationship with nature in environments from the Amazon to Antarctica. Exhibits of his photographs have been shown at major museums in Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York, Madrid, and Amsterdam. Lanting's previous TASCHEN titles include Eye to Eye, Jungles, and Penguin. The editor: Christine Eckstrom is a writer and editor specializing in natural history. She collaborates with Lanting on fieldwork, books, and other publishing projects from their home base in California.

    In reality this is not the case at all. We all have the tendency to overestimate our rationality to the point of denying reality. The many ways in which we do this are collectively called cognitive biases. Our brain may be the most complicated thinking machine but it is not without limitations. In our attempt to understand the world around us through our lens we simplify things and fall prey to cognitive biases. Sometimes these biases are caused by heuristics or mental shortcuts which help us reach quick judgments when we have little time. At other times our judgment is clouded by situational factors and inner motivations and emotions.However we are not completely helpless in this aspect. Knowing these biases exist can help us avoid them through conscious efforts. We need to be able to recognize these biases in our decision making. They are inevitable in most cases but they are not impossible to bypass.

    Dogs, multi-award-winning photographer Tim Flach’s stunning follow-up to the critically acclaimed Equus, delves deep into the psyche of this enduring bond with Canis familiaris to present an exquisite study of “man’s best friend.”   From specimens on show at Crufts and Westminster to shelter dogs lovingly rescued by volunteers; from the grace and agility of racing greyhounds to adored domestic companions; from Afghan hounds to Hungarian komondors to Chinese crested, the images featured in Dogs promise to deliver one of the most appealing, popular, and exciting photographic tributes to dogs ever published.  Praise for Dogs:"The dogs he captures in these pages are, by turns, soulful, expressive, and winsome-- and all of themare stunning." --Entertainment Weekly "This book will appeal to all ages. I know this because it was lying around our house on Thanksgiving Day and everyone wanted a look at it -- from college-age to senior citizen. They all oohed and aahed. If you're a dog lover, or even a dog liker, it's a keeper." --The Christian Science Monitor "Featuring profiles of dozens of canines, Dogs is a divine collection of images that spotlights the endearing characteristics of different pooches, elevating them to divine status. Whether it's a troubled-looking Bloodhound or a demure Dalmatian, Flach's subjects establish a direct connection with the viewer, dog-lover or otherwise." --Flavorwire.com