Book picks similar to
Infinite Nature by R. Bruce Hull
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The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics
Roderick Nash - 1989
“A splendid book. Roderick Nash has written another classic. This exploration of a new dimension in environmental ethics is both illuminating and overdue.”—Stewart Udall “His account makes history ‘come alive.’”—Sierra“So smoothly written that one almost does not notice the breadth of scholarship that went into this original and important work of environmental history.”—Philip Shabecoff, New York Times Book Review“Clarifying and challenging, this is an essential text for deep ecologists and ecophilosophers.”—Stephanie Mills, Utne Reader
The Peregrine
J.A. Baker - 1967
Baker set out to track the daily comings and goings of a pair of peregrine falcons across the flat fen lands of eastern England. He followed the birds obsessively, observing them in the air and on the ground, in pursuit of their prey, making a kill, eating, and at rest, activities he describes with an extraordinary fusion of precision and poetry. And as he continued his mysterious private quest, his sense of human self slowly dissolved, to be replaced with the alien and implacable consciousness of a hawk.It is this extraordinary metamorphosis, magical and terrifying, that these beautifully written pages record.
Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made
Gaia Vince - 2014
But all too often the full picture of change is obstructed by dense data sets and particular catastrophes. Struggling with this obscurity in her role as an editor at Nature, Gaia Vince decided to travel the world and see for herself what life is really like for people on the frontline of this new reality. What she found was a number people doing the most extraordinary things.During her journey she finds a man who is making artificial glaciers in Nepal along with an individual who is painting mountains white to attract snowfall; take the electrified reefs of the Maldives; or the man who's making islands out of rubbish in the Caribbean. These are ordinary people who are solving severe crises in crazy, ingenious, effective ways. While Vince does not mince words regarding the challenging position our species is in, these wonderful stories, combined with the new science that underpins Gaia's expertise and research, make for a persuasive, illuminating — and strangely hopeful — read on what the Anthropocene means for our future.
The Joyful Environmentalist
Isabel Losada - 2020
And to do this wholeheartedly, energetically and joyfully.’ Finally! A book about saving our planet that is fast, funny and inspiring too. Isabel doesn’t bother with an examination of the problem but gets right on with the solutions. Her aim: to look for every single way that we can take care of the planet; how we live and work, travel, shop, eat, drink, dress, vote, play, volunteer, bank – everything. The feel-good book of the year for anyone who loves nature and knows that one person can make a HUGE difference. ‘This is the joy we need in our lives.’ - George Monbiot ‘She gave my spirit a lift and my feet somewhere to stand.’ - Sir Mark Rylance ‘Practical and realistic as well as visionary.’ - Dr Rowan Williams ‘A manifesto of brilliant advice offered with humility and good grace. A practical guide to empower us all.’ - Isabella Tree ISABEL LOSADA is the bestselling author of six previous books including The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment.
Magic the Gathering: The Brothers' War (Artifacts Cycle)
Jeff Grubb - 2001
The Magic. Dominarian legends speak of a mighty conflict, obscured by the mists of history. Of a conflict between the brothers Urza and Mishra for supremacy on the continent of Terisiare. Of titantic engines that scarred and twisted the very planet. Of a final battle that sank continents and shook the skies. The saga of the Brothers' War.
Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto
Stewart Brand - 2009
According to Stewart Brand, a lifelong environmentalist who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, three profound transformations are underway on Earth right now. Climate change is real and is pushing us toward managing the planet as a whole. Urbanization--half the world's population now lives in cities, and eighty percent will by midcentury--is altering humanity's land impact and wealth. And biotechnology is becoming the world's dominant engineering tool. In light of these changes, Brand suggests that environmentalists are going to have to reverse some longheld opinions and embrace tools that they have traditionally distrusted. Only a radical rethinking of traditional green pieties will allow us to forestall the cataclysmic deterioration of the earth's resources.Whole Earth Discipline shatters a number of myths and presents counterintuitive observations on why cities are actually greener than the countryside, how nuclear power is the future of energy, and why genetic engineering is the key to crop and land management. With a combination of scientific rigour and passionate advocacy, Brand shows us exactly where the sources of our dilemmas lie and offer a bold and inventive set of policies and solutions for creating a more sustainable society. In the end, says Brand, the environmental movement must become newly responsive to fast-moving science and take up the tools and discipline of engineering. We have to learn how to manage the planet's global-scale natural infrastructure with as light a touch as possible and as much intervention as necessary.
The Oak Papers
James Canton - 2021
While considering the direction of his own life, he began to contemplate the existence of this colossal tree. Standing in England for centuries, the oak would have been a sapling when the Magna Carta was signed in 1215.Canton examines our long-standing dependency on the oak, and how that has developed and morphed into myth and legend. We no longer need these sturdy trees to build our houses and boats, to fuel our fires, or to grind their acorns into flour in times of famine. What purpose, then, do they serve in our world today? Are these miracles of nature no longer necessary to our lives? What can they offer us? Canton tells the story of this tree in its ecological, spiritual, literary, and historical contexts, using it as a prism to see his own life and human history. The Oak Papers is a reflection on change and transformation, and the role nature has played in sustaining and redeeming us.
George Orwell Premium Collection: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) - Animal Farm - Burmese Days - Keep the Aspidistra Flying - Homage to Catalonia - The Road to Wigan Pier and Over 50 Amazing Novels, Non-Fiction Books and Essays
George Orwell - 2014
The six novels, published in order of importance, are: • Nineteen Eighty-Four (the most important dystopian novel ever written, together with Huxley's Brave New World, and Zamyatin's "We" • Animal Farm (1945) • Burmese Days (1934) • Coming Up for Air (1939) • A Clergyman's Daughter (1935) • Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) His three non fiction books are: • Homage to Catalonia (1938), about the Spanish Civil War. • Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) The last book of the collection is called "ESSAYS: From Hitler, Franco & the Atomic Bomb; to Tolstoi, Dickens & Twain". Orwell was an acclaimed analyst of his country's reality during World War II and beyond (including the beginning of the cold war), which he reflects in his many articles and pamphlets collected in this book. He also did very deep literary and personal analysis of men like Mark Twain, Adolf Hitler, or even Tolstoi. The following is the list of essays. 1. THE SPIKE 2. A HANGING (1931) 3. BOOKSHOP MEMORIES (1936) 4. SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT (1936) 5. SPILLING THE SPANISH BEANS (1937) 6. MARRAKECH (1939) 7. BOYS' WEEKLIES AND FRANK RICHARDS'S REPLY (1940) 8. CHARLES READE (1940) 9. THE ART OF DONALD MCGILL (1941) 10. WELLS, HITLER AND THE WORLD STATE (1941) 11. RUDYARD KIPLING (1942) 12. MARK TWAIN–THE LICENSED JESTER (1943) 13. POETRY AND THE MICROPHONE (1943) 14. W B YEATS (1943) 15. ARTHUR KOESTLER (1944) 16. BENEFIT OF CLERGY: SOME NOTES ON SALVADOR DALI (1944) 18. ANTISEMITISM IN BRITAIN (1945) 19. FREEDOM OF THE PARK (1945) 20. FUTURE OF A RUINED GERMANY (1945) 21. GOOD BAD BOOKS 22. NONSENSE POETRY 23. NOTES ON NATIONALISM (1945) 24. REVENGE IS SOUR (1945) 25. THE SPORTING SPIRIT 26. YOU AND THE ATOMIC BOMB (1945) 27. A GOOD WORD FOR THE VICAR OF BRAY 28. A NICE CUP OF TEA (1946) 29. BOOKS VS. CIGARETTES 30. CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK REVIEWER 31. DECLINE OF THE ENGLISH MURDER 32. HOW THE POOR DIE 33. PLEASURE SPOTS 34. POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 35. SOME THOUGHTS ON THE COMMON TOAD 36. THE PREVENTION OF LITERATURE 37. WHY I WRITE (1946) 38. LEAR, TOLSTOY AND THE FOOL 39. SUCH, SUCH WERE THE JOYS (1947) 40. WRITERS AND LEVIATHAN (1948)
Winter: Five Windows on the Season
Adam Gopnik - 2011
International bestselling author Adam Gopnik does for this storied season what he did for the City of Light in the New York Times bestseller Paris to the Moon. Here he tells the story of winter in five parts: Romantic Winter, Radical Winter, Recuperative Winter, Recreational Winter, and Remembering Winter. In this stunningly beautiful meditation, Gopnik touches on a kaleidoscope of subjects, from the German romantic landscape to the politics of polar exploration to the science of ice. And in the end, he pays homage to what could be a lost season — and thus, a lost collective cultural history — due to the threat of global warming. Through delicate, enchanting, and intricate narrative detail, buoyed by his trademark gentle wit, Gopnik draws us into another magical world and makes us look at it anew.
Wandi
Favel Parrett - 2021
This is where he meets his first Human, and begins his long journey to becoming the most famous dingo in the world. He will never see his mountain home again, or his family. But it is his destiny to save alpine dingoes from extinction, and he dreams of a time when all cubs like him can live in the wild in safety, instead of facing poison and bullets and hatred. A children's literary classic in-the-making from one of Australia's most-loved authors.
Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
Michael Shellenberger - 2020
He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions.But in 2019, as some claimed “billions of people are going to die,” contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong environmental activist, leading energy expert, and father of a teenage daughter, he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas.Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions.What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs.
Trickster
Vinaya Bhagat - 2018
As far as she knows, she’s alonein the world – till a mysterious letter arrives from India.Suddenly, Diya has a chance at being part of a family again.But moving from Boston to India also brings Diya closer tothe place where the horror of the Chakwa – the MasterTrickster – first started. As bodies and tragedies pile uparound her, Diya’s belief in the urban legend of the Chakwaincreases. Will the monster that ruined her parents’ life nowdestroy Diya’s happiness? Or will she manage to defeat it atits own game? With the help of her newly discovered friendsand family, Diya must fight not just the monster from hernightmares, but also make sense of a fast-unravelling web oflies that makes up her life.VINAYA BHAGAT is an IT professional and author. Her shortstories have been published in anthologies and have beenshort-listed in national and international writing competitions.Trickster is her debut novel.Vinaya lives in Bangalore, India with her husband, who isa radiologist and her eight-year-old son. Weekends find herinventing stories and games with her son.
The Enlightened Spaniel - A Dog's Quest to be a Buddhist
Gary Heads - 2018
Ably assisted by a bookshelf, who holds a fountain of knowledge, they embark upon a quest to discover the secrets of meditation and uncover the path to ancient wisdom. As they progress along the road to enlightenment, they not only transform their own perception of life, but also the lives of those around them. The journey is a challenging one, but is held together by Half-Sister’s wicked sense of humour and a desire to enter into spaniel folklore. The Enlightened Spaniel is a wise tale, filled with insights and humour, that celebrates the connection between all beings that reside on Planet Earth.
A Place for Violence
Kevin Wignall - 2008
There's Luke Williams, a young American who's been left in a wheelchair by a drunk driver. Then there's Brian Tully, a wise-cracking bully with connections in Vegas, together with his sheepish family. And finally there's Dan Borowski, an Australian security analyst. Trouble is, Dan isn't there to relax, and though they don't yet know it, nor are any of the others... This short story first appeared in "Storyglossia" in May 2008. Dan Borowski first appeared as a character in "For the Dogs", and this is one of two short stories (the other is "Retrospective") to feature him.
Checking Out PEEPs Lite 9.1
Alexie Aaron - 2014
PEEPs Lite – More story, less filling. Some stories just need to be told; anyway, that’s what the voices in my head keep telling me. As I prepare for the next full length “Haunted Series” novel (available in the Spring of 2014), I can’t help wanting to tell you a couple stories in between. These novellas fall after “Something Old” the ninth novel in the “Haunted Series.” I hope you enjoy them. Alexie Aaron PEEPs Lite 9.1 Checking Out: Are all rules made to be broken? And if so, what are the consequences? Burt has just broken his number one rule in paranormal investigating, never hunt alone, and he’s regretting it. The ghost hotel, the Dew Drop Inn, has been serving the lost travelers of southern Wisconsin for decades. It provides a bed and breakfast to the lost and weary traveler then disappears the next day never to be seen by the guests again. Burt has been interested in this urban legend for quite some time. He caught the scent of the fabled ghost inn and took off without out informing his fellow Paranormal Entity Exposure Partners, and now he’s missing. Fortunately, his obsessive method of tracking the B&B has left a trail of muffin crumbs for Mia, Murphy and the PEEPs team to follow. Will they find him in time or will Burt become a permanent guest of the hotel and not be checking out? Join the team as they investigate the Dew Drop Inn in the PEEPS Lite novella 9.1 “Checking Out.” Coming in February 2014 PEEPs Lite 9.2 “Ice and Steel.”