From revelations about the meanest, softest, and smelliest players in the league, to Williams’s early days as a “young man with a lot of money and not a lot of sense,” to his strong and powerful views on race, privilege, and giving back, Loose Balls is a basketball book unlike any other.No inspirational pieties or chest-thumping boasting here—instead, Jayson Williams gives us the real insider tales of refs, groupies, coaches, entourages, and all the superstars, bench warmers, journeymen, clowns, and other performers in the rarefied circus that is professional basketball.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    This is a how-to book on meadow-making that's also about sustainability, regeneration, and beauty.In a world where lawns have wreaked havoc on our natural ecosystems, meadows offer a compelling solution. It is garden landscaping that is beautiful, all year round. Meadows establish wildlife and pollinator habitats, are low-maintenance and low-cost, have a built-in resilience that helps them weather climate extremes, and can draw down and store far more carbon dioxide than any manicured lawn. Wormser describes how to plant an organic meadow garden or traditional meadow, that’s right for your site. His book includes guidance on:-Preparing your plot-Designing your meadow-Planting without using synthetic chemicals-Growing 21 starter native grasses and wildflowers, including butterfly weed, smooth blue aster, purple coneflower, wild bergamot, and many more.He also includes tips on building support in neighborhoods where a tidy lawn is the standard, and how to become a meadow activist. To illuminate the many joys of meadow-building, Wormser draws on his own stories, including how growing up off the grid in northern Maine, with no electricity or plumbing, prepared him for his work."It’s time to rebuild meadows wherever we can, including the deadscape we call lawn. Owen Wormser explains why, and how to do this, with oodles of highly readable, ecologically sound advice." -Douglas W. Tallamy, Professor of Entomology, author of Bringing Nature Home and Nature's Best Hope"The author tells us how to grow a meadow, and become a positive force on behalf of the planet. I highly recommend this book." -Dr. John Todd, Ecologist, author of Healing Earth

    Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also so much more. Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren’s stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands”; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work.Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with a brilliant, wounded man named Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them from the Midwest across the United States and back again, over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home.

    Jan Johnsen’s new book, Gardentopia: Design Basics for Creating Beautiful Outdoor Spaces, will delight all garden lovers with over 130 lushly illustrated landscape design and planting suggestions. Ms. Johnsen is an admired designer and popular speaker whose hands-on approach to “co-creating with nature” will have you saying, “I can do that!’This info-packed, sumptuous book offers individual tips for enhancing any size landscape using ‘real world’ solutions. The suggestions are grouped into five categories that include Garden Design and Artful Accents, Walls, Patios, and Steps and Plants and Planting, among others. Whether you are an experienced gardener or a landscaping novice, Gardentopia will inspire you with tips such as ‘Soften a Corner”, “Paint it Black”, and “Hide and Reveal”.

    

    For thirty years, Diane Covington-Carter dreamed of living in France and immersing herself in the country and language that spoke to her heart and soul. At age fifty, she set off to fulfill that yearning. Journey along with her as she discovers missing pieces of her own personal puzzle that could only emerge in French. Most of all, Covington-Carter learned that a long cherished dream can become even more powerful from the waiting.

    But there is a solution. Unrestricted outdoor play helps reduce stress, improve health, and enhance creativity, learning, and attention span. In Nature Play at Home, Nancy Striniste gives you the tools you need to make outdoor adventures possible in your own backyard. With hundreds of inspiring ideas and illustrated, step-by-step projects, this hardworking book details how to create playspaces that use natural materials—like logs, boulders, sand, water, and plants of all kinds. Projects include hillside slides, seating circles, sand pits, and more.

    First there were the rats in the pantry, then the floods, then the fires, then the visiting cougar. Life in Bull Canyon was daunting and dangerous. Often Lin wondered just what in the world they were doing so far from their customary home on the open seas. Bull Canyon joins the canon of great tales of homesteading, told in the warm, funny, and insightful voice of a true storyteller.

    Equally remarkable, she did it solo, on a bike cobbled together from used parts. Her panniers were recycled buckets. In Bicycling with Butterflies, Dykman recounts her incredible journey and the dramatic ups and downs of the nearly nine-month odyssey. We’re beside her as she navigates unmapped roads in foreign countries, checks roadside milkweed for monarch eggs, and shares her passion with eager schoolchildren, skeptical bar patrons, and unimpressed border officials. We also meet some of the ardent monarch stewards who supported her efforts, from citizen scientists and researchers to farmers and high-rise city dwellers. With both humor and humility, Dykman offers a compelling story, confirming the urgency of saving the threatened monarch migration—and the other threatened systems of nature that affect the survival of us all.

    

    So little, in fact, that scientists and philosophers have, for centuries, been obsessed with what has become known as the “eel question”: Where do eels come from? What are they? Are they fish or some other kind of creature altogether? Even today, in an age of advanced science, no one has ever seen eels mating or giving birth, and we still don’t understand what drives them, after living for decades in freshwater, to swim great distances back to the ocean at the end of their lives. They remain a mystery.Drawing on a breadth of research about eels in literature, history, and modern marine biology, as well as his own experience fishing for eels with his father, Patrik Svensson writes a book about this unusual animal. In The Book of Eels, we meet renowned historical thinkers, from Aristotle to Sigmund Freud to Rachel Carson, for whom the eel was a singular obsession. And we meet the scientists who spearheaded the search for the eel’s point of origin, including Danish marine biologist Johannes Schmidt, who led research efforts in the early twentieth century, catching thousands upon thousands of eels, in the hopes of proving their birthing grounds in the Sargasso Sea.Blending memoir and nature writing, Svensson’s journey to understand the eel becomes an exploration of the human condition that delves into overarching issues about our roots and destiny, both as humans and as animals, and, ultimately, how to handle the biggest question of all: death.

    After walking 630 homeless miles along The Salt Path, living on the windswept and wild English coastline; the cliffs, the sky and the chalky earth now feel like their home.Moth has a terminal diagnosis, but against all medical odds, he seems revitalized in nature. Together on the wild coastal path, with their feet firmly rooted outdoors, they discover that anything is possible.Now, life beyond The Salt Path awaits and they come back to four walls, but the sense of home is illusive and returning to normality is proving difficult - until an incredible gesture by someone who reads their story changes everything.A chance to breathe life back into a beautiful farmhouse nestled deep in the Cornish hills; rewilding the land and returning nature to its hedgerows becomes their saving grace and their new path to follow.The Wild Silence is a story of hope triumphing over despair, of lifelong love prevailing over everything. It is a luminous account of the human spirit's instinctive connection to nature, and how vital it is for us all.

    You’ll be amazed at how a variety of natural pollinators, pest predators, and soil enrichers can promote vibrant and healthy vegetables. Discover how a slug problem disappears once you’ve introduced a pond housing bullfrogs, how wasps can take care of tomato hornworms, and why skunks aren’t so bad after all. Learn how to garden with animals, rather than against them, and reap your most bountiful harvest yet.

    Born to privilege as the daughter of one of Pakistan’s great feudal families, she was groomed for a diplomatic career and was thrust into the political arena when her father, Pakistan's charismatic and controversial prime minister, was executed. She then led Pakistan, one of the most turbulent and impoverished nations in the world, through two terms as prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, but she struggled to ward off charges of corruption and retain her tenuous hold on power and was eventually forced into exile. Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 2007, only to be assassinated in Rawalpindi after a triumphant speech.Including interviews with key figures who knew Bhutto and have never before spoken on the record, Benazir Bhutto: Favored Daughter illuminates Bhutto’s tragic life as well as the role she played as the first female prime minister of Pakistan. Celebrated literary critic Brooke Allen approaches Bhutto in a way not many have done before in this taut biography of a figure who had a profound effect on the volatile politics of the Middle East, drawing on contemporary news sources and eyewitness reports, as well as accounts from her supporters and her enemies.

    Award-winning author Anna DeSimone explains all the ways that sustainably sourced, locally grown food is healthier, preserves farmland, and lowers your carbon footprint. LIVE IN AGRIHOOD, an eco-friendly, healthy-lifestyle community centered around a professionally managed farm. Discover why agrihoods are winning awards across the nation for "best places to live." You can have a beautiful, sustainably built home with the latest energy conservation features, and yet be surrounded by pastoral landscapes and natural habitat. This book takes you through a virtual tour of agrihoods, known for amenities such as charter K-12 schools, clubhouses, fitness centers, boating, golf, horseback riding, swimming, walking, hiking, and biking trails. Best of all, many are surprisingly close to major cities and metro areas. ORGANIC ROOFTOP FARMS are the newest trend in multifamily housing, where tenants can take the elevator to shop for fresh food, or perhaps dine at the on-site café where meals are prepared with food from the chef's garden. Many apartment complexes are incorporating community gardens into the landscape or offering individual raised-bed gardens for tenants to grow their own produce. GROW YOUR OWN ORGANIC FOOD on your porch, balcony, or in your backyard with helpful tips, planting guides, and valuable resources about sustainable, chemical-free, and environmentally friendly growing methods. This book teaches the basics of organic certification, food safety, biodiversity, beekeeping, soil testing, composting, and local laws. With infographics and clear commentary, readers will understand how sustainable agriculture helps the environment, and how far food travels. You might be inspired to start planting microgreens indoors after learning about aeroponics, hydroponics, and aquaponics. SHOP FROM THE FARMER YOU KNOW and learn the story behind your food. This book illustrates the "harvest season," and describes the scope of food products and pick-your-own options at "on-farm" markets. You'll learn about "food hubs," mission-based organizations dedicated to sustainable agriculture, fair trade, social, and environmental causes. Food hubs bring together local farmers, fisheries, ranchers, and artisans. By enrolling in a season-long "farm share" program known as "Community-Supported Agriculture" your family can enjoy fresh, healthy food and connect with the people who plant, manage and harvest your food. Contents:•The Local Food Sensation•Say Hello to Your Farmer•Urban Agriculture•Agrihoods•Backyard Farming•Community-Supported Agriculture (CSAs)•On-Farm Markets•Food HubsBOOK INCLUDES A NATIONAL DIRECTORY OF AGRIHOODS AND LISTS OVER 2,200 RESOURCES TO BUY FRESH, LOCALLY GROWN FOOD.