Joyride: Pedaling Toward a Healthier Planet


Mia Birk - 2010
    With only table scraps of funding, Birk led a revolution that helped grow Portland, Oregon, into the country's premier cycling city. She then hit the road, teaching communities how to incorporate cycling into their civic DNA to make their towns healthier, safer, and more livable. Through a panoply of hilarious and poignant stories, Birk takes readers on a rollercoaster journey of global and local discovery, while bringing into sharp focus some of the planet's most pressing and hotly debated energy and transportation issues, policies, shortcomings, and solutions. Her funny, touching, and instructive Joyride offers hope and experienced how-to advice to anyone interested in changing our world for the better—one pedal stroke at a time.

Birds of Wisconsin Field Guide


Stan Tekiela - 1999
    There's no need to look through dozens of photos of birds that don't live in Wisconsin. This book features 111 species of Wisconsin birds, organized by color for ease of use. Do you see a yellow bird and don't know what it is? Go to the yellow section to find out. Fact-filled information, a compare feature, range maps and detailed photographs help to ensure that you positively identify the birds that you see.

Back from the Brink: How Australia's Landscape Can Be Saved


Peter Andrews - 2006
    His methods are so at odds with conventional scientific wisdom that for 30 years he has been dismissed and ridiculed as a madman. He has faced bankruptcy and family break-up. But now, on the brink of ecological disaster, leading politicians, international scientists and businessmen are beating a path to his door as they grapple with how best to alleviate the affects of drought on the Australian landscape. Described as a man who reads and understands the Australian landscape better than most scientists, supporters of Peter Andrews claim he has done what no scientist ever thought to do — he has restored streams and wetlands to the way they were before European settlement interfered with them. The startling results of his natural sequence farming are said to have been achieved very cheaply, simply and quickly.

How to Think Like a Fish: And Other Lessons from a Lifetime in Angling


Jeremy Wade - 2019
    Now the greatest angling explorer of his generation (Independent on Sunday) returns to delight readers with a book of an entirely different sort, the book he was always destined to write--the distillation of a life spent fishing. Thoughtful and funny, brimming with wisdom and above all, adventure, these are pitch-perfect reflections that anyone who has ever fished will identify with, for ultimately it touches on what fishing teaches us all about life.

Secrets of the Conqueror: The Untold Story of Britain's Most Famous Submarine


Stuart Prebble - 2012
    It is the only sub since World War Two to have sunk an enemy ship. Conqueror's sinking of the Argentine cruiser Belgrano made inevitable an all-out war over the future of the Falkland Islands, and sparked off one of the most controversial episodes of twentieth century politics. The controversy was fuelled by a war-diary kept by an officer on board HMS Conqueror, and as a young TV producer in the 1980s Stuart Prebble scooped the world by locating the diary's author and getting his story on the record. But in the course of uncovering his Falklands story, Stuart Prebble also learned a military secret which could have come straight out of a Cold War thriller. It involved the Top Secret activities of the Conqueror in the months before and after the Falklands War. Prebble has waited for thirty years to tell his story. It is a story of incredible courage and derring-do, of men who put their lives on the line and were never allowed to tell what they had done. This story, buried under layers of official secrecy for three decades, is one of Britain's great military success stories and can now finally be told.

66 Days Adrift: A True Story of Disaster and Survival on the Open Sea


William A. Butler - 1992
    But, twelve hundred miles from land, the alluring ocean showed its deadly side when, without warning, a pod of pilot whales attacked their sailboat, battering it until it sank beneath the waves. The dazed couple was left drifting in midocean in a leaky six-foot raft meant for coastal waters, with only a few hastily grabbed provisions to sustain them. Simonne, who had never truly shared Bill's dream of circumnavigating the globe, blamed him bitterly for their desperate plight.In this powerful account of their 66-day odyssey, Butler tells a gritty, harrowing tale of their battles against nature, despair, and their own demons. He reveals how he and Simonne found the strength to survive despite the ravages of hunger, storms, and sharks. Based on Butler's faithful log entries, 66 Days Adrift is both a chilling cautionary tale for sailors with big ideas and an inspiring story of love, faith, and survival against long odds."How a lifetime dream to sail around the world becomes a fight to survive."--Yachting"A vivid account of the complete will to live."--The San Juan Star

The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast


Bonnie Henderson - 2014
    The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast is the gripping story of the geological discoveries—and the scientists who uncovered them—that signal the imminence of a catastrophic tsunami on the Northwest Coast.

The First Fleet


Rob Mundle - 2014
    Bestselling Maritme Biographer, Rob Mundle, is back on the ocean with a blockbuster. First Fleet tells the extraordinary story of the eighteenth century convoy of eleven ships that left England on 13th May 1787 for the 'land beyond the seas'. Aboard were seafarers, convicts, marines and a few good citizens - some 1300 hundred in all - who had been consigned to a virtually unknown land on the opposite side of the world where they would establish a penal colony, and a nation. The fleet stopped at Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town before sailing across the notorious and challenging Southern ocean, bound for Botany bay. Somehow all 11 ships arrived safely between 18 and 20 January 1788. But it's what happened during 252 days at sea while sailing halfway around the world, and subsequently on land, that is almost beyond belief. No nation has ever been founded in such a courageous and dangerous manner. It's the basis for one hell of an adventure

Mason Bee Revolution: How the Hardest Working Bee Can Save the World - One Backyard at a Time


Dave Hunter - 2016
    Honeybees Make Honey; Mason Bees Make Food.

The Ethical Capitalist: How to Make Business Work Better for Society


Julian Richer - 2018
    Every week brings fresh news stories about businesses exploiting their staff, avoiding their taxes, and ripping off their customers. Every week, public anger at the system grows. Now, one of Britain’s foremost entrepreneurs intervenes to make the case for putting business back firmly in the service of society, and setting out on a new path to a kinder, fairer form of capitalism.Drawing on four decades of hands-on management experience, the founder of Richer Sounds argues that ethically run businesses are invariably more efficient, more motivated and more innovative than those that care only about the bottom line. He uncovers the simple tools that the best leaders use to make their businesses fair, revealing how others can follow suit. And he also delves into the big questions that modern capitalism has to answer if it is to survive and to thrive. When should – and shouldn’t – the state intervene in the workings of commercial enterprises? What does business as a whole owe back to the wider community? Is the relationship between leaders of big corporations and politicians too cosy, and, if so, what is to be done about it?At heart, The Ethical Capitalist is a plea for a new sense of moral purpose in business. If that takes hold, Julian Richer believes, we might just save capitalism from itself.

Faith of Cranes: Finding Hope and Family in Alaska


Hank Lentfer - 2011
    Lentfer's storytelling achieves its joys and universality not via grand summations but via grounded self-giving, familial intimacy, funny friendships, attentive griefs, and full-bodied immersion in the Alaskan rainforest. The writing is honest, intensely lived, and overflowing with heart: broken, mended, and whole."a "David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and God Laughs & PlaysHank Lentfer listened to cranes passing over his home in southeast alaska for twenty years before bothering to figure out where they were going. On a very visceral level, he didn't want to know. After all, cranes gliding through the wide skies of Alaska are the essence of wildness. But the same animals, pecking a living between the cornfields and condos of California's Central Valley, seem trapped and diminished. A former wildlife biologist and longtime conservationist, Lentfer had come to accept that no number of letters to the editor or trips to D.C. could stop the spread of clear cuts, alter the course of climate change, or ensure that his beloved cranes would always appear. And he had no idea that following the paths of cranes would lead him to the very things he was most afraid of: parenthood, responsibility, and actions of hope in a frustrating and warming world. Faith of Cranes is Lentfer's quiet, lyrical memoir of his home and community near Glacier Bay that reveals a family's simple acts -- planting potatoes, watching cranes, hunting deer -- as well as a close and eccentric Alaskan community. It shows how several thousand birds and one little girl teach a new father there is no future imaginable that does not leave room for compassion and grace.

Chernobyl Notebook


Grigori Medvedev - 1987
    This is perhaps the first time we have such a complete firsthand account in which nothing is kept back and there is no departmental “diplomacy.” The author is a nuclear power specialist who worked for a time at the Chernobyl AES and knows it well, just as he is personally acquainted with all the principal participants in the events. By virtue of his official position, he has attended many of the crucial conferences concerning nuclear power plant construction. Immediately after the accident, Medvedev was sent to Chernobyl and had an opportunity to learn a great deal while the trail was still fresh and to see things with his own eyes. He presents many technical details indispensable to understanding the mechanism whereby the accident occurred, he exposes the secrets of bureaucratic relations, he tells about the oversights of scientists and designers, about the disastrous overbearing pressure in the command system, about the violations of glasnost before the accident and in the emergency situation following it that have caused enormous harm. The chronicle of events at Chernobyl in the tragic days of April and May 1986 takes up the central place in the story. The author portrays the behavior and role of numerous participants in the drama, of real living people with their shortcomings and virtues, their doubts, their weaknesses, their illusions, and their heroism alongside the nuclear monster that had gone out of control. It is not possible to read about this without the deepest emotion. We knew about the exploits of the firemen. The author tells about the heroism of the electricians, the turbine specialists, the operators, and other workers at the station who prevented the accident from taking on greater proportions.

Once Is Enough


Miles Smeeton - 1959
    I felt a great lurch and heel, and a thunder of sound filled my ears. I was conscious, in a terrified moment, of being driven into the front and side of my bunk with tremendous force. At the same time there was a tearing cracking sound, as if Tzu Hang was being ripped apart, and water burst solidly, raging into the cabin. There was darkness, black boards, and I fought wildly to get out, thinking Tzu Hang had already gone. Then suddenly I was standing again, waist deep in water, and floorboards and cushions, mattresses and books were sloshing in wild confusion round me.’Miles Smeeton and his wife Beryl sailed their 46-ft Bermuda ketch, Tzu Hang, in the wild seas of Cape Horn, following the tracks of the old sailing clippers through the world’s most notorious waters. This is an exciting true story of survival against all odds, but it is also a thoughtful book which provides hard-learned lessons for other intrepid sailors.As Nevil Shute writes in his foreword: ‘It has been left to Miles Smeeton to tell us in clear and simple language just where the limits of safety lie.’

The Killdeer Connection


Tom Swyers - 2017
    It's an Amazon international writing competition winner. . Some readers say it's just as good as a John Grisham novel. Some say it's better. Others compare it favorably to books by Lee Child, Michael Connelly, or David Baldacci. Readers of Scott Pratt, Thomas Benigno, Robert Dugoni, and John Ellsworth also enjoy Killdeer.* * *When your friend's life is a lie, the truth can kill you.David Thompson is a burned-out lawyer and family man just trying to make ends meet when he stumbles into the crosshairs of the law. He's in the wrong place at the wrong time and becomes a suspect in a friend's murder because the law has nobody else to pin it on.Thompson goes on the run to find his friend's true killer before he's thrown in jail and railroaded all the way to the lethal injection table.But the truth is a slippery slope full of court drama, mystery, mayhem, and murder because his friend lived a secret life built on lies. When Thompson gets too close to the truth, the real killer goes on the hunt. The law and a killer want Thompson now. His wife and son just want him back home.Suddenly, a tidal wave of terror strikes the country and Thompson's quest to save his own skin suddenly explodes into a race to save both his family and the nation.But he may be too late . . . The Killdeer Connection is the 1st standalone book in the Lawyer David Thompson Legal Thriller Series. If you like gripping thrillers full of suspense, mystery, and mayhem with twists and turns that will leave you guessing until the very end, you'll love Tom Swyers' tale of Big Oil, trains, and wild rides over the backroads of America. Buy both Killdeer AND Caged to Kill (the next in the series) right now! ***Here's what readers are saying about Killdeer:"Low-cost Kindle books, I have found, are generally all a little rough and amateurish, but this book is as good as it gets. There is suspense and surprises and twists that are breathtaking and unique. I enjoyed this book as much or more than books by the NY Times bestsellers. It was a fast, exciting and rewarding read. I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy quality." - Gardengale"I never saw the end coming. The book was hard to put down to go to sleep the night I started it. It's as good as any Grisham novel I've ever read." - Mountain Mom"Unputdownable. This book absolutely draws you in and makesyou feel as if you're there. Lee Child meets John Grisham."-Robann"This is a new legal writer who deserves to be viewed with Grisham and Baldacci.From page one word you are drawn in until the last word on the last page."- Ken "This book grabbed my attention and interest from the first page and it never let go!" - Maria"His story hooked me from page one and kept steaming along, just like the trains in the book. This author is just as good if not better than John Grisham." - Artist 2017"It was exciting, clean as to language, no sex just a really great legal thriller. I highly recommend this book!" - G.L.H. "If you dig John Grisham you will enjoy Killdeer."- Steve"Move over John Grisham!." - Greg"Lots of twists, turns, me guessing...action packed, more suspense, more of me guessing. A great read! Another new author for me." - Montzalee"I often felt as though I was watching a mystery or action movie. I really felt drawn in to the story. The pace is steady and the mystery keeps you guessing and interested. I highly recommend this book." - Susan"Tom Swyers delivers another thrill ride from the opening scene tothe high-octane ending." - Kelly"I had weeds in the garden, dishes in the sink, unwashed laundry,but I couldn't put the book down." - Phebe"A well written legal thriller you will not want to put down."-Bette"One of the best legal thrillers I have ever read." - Rob"An excellent legal thriller in the manner of John Grisham."- SimonGet Killdeer & a copy of Caged to Kill now!

The Circumference of Home: One Man's Yearlong Quest for a Radically Local Life


Kurt Hoelting - 2010
    If I can’t change my own life in response to the greatest challenge now facing our human family, who can? And if I won’t make the effort to try, why should anyone else? So I’ve decided to start at home, and begin with myself. The question is no longer whether I must respond. The question is whether I can turn my response into an adventure. After realizing the gaping hole between his convictions about climate change and his own carbon footprint, Kurt Hoelting embarked on a yearlong experiment to rediscover the heart of his own home: He traded his car and jet travel for a kayak, a bicycle, and his own two feet, traveling a radius of 100 kilometers from his home in Puget Sound. This “circumference of home” proved more than enough. Part quest and part guidebook for change, Hoelting’s journey is an inspiring reminder that what we need really is close at hand, and that the possibility for adventure lies around every bend.