No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference
Greta Thunberg - 2019
Her actions sparked a global movement, inspiring millions of students to go on strike for our planet, forcing governments to listen, and earning her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.No One Is Too Small to Make A Difference brings you Greta in her own words, for the first time. Collecting her speeches that have made history across the globe, from the United Nations to Capitol Hill and mass street protests, her book is a rallying cry for why we must all wake up and fight to protect the living planet, no matter how powerless we feel. Our future depends upon it.
Nature and Other Essays
Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1860
Through his writings, Emerson ardently professed the importance of being an individual, resisting the comfort of conformity, and creating an art of living in harmony with nature. This soul-satisfying anthology of twelve favorite essays is a treasure.In the title essay, Emerson writes about the extraordinary power of nature as a way of bringing the divine into our lives. In "Gifts," he reminds us that flowers and gold may be acceptable to those we love, but "the only gift is a portion of thyself." "Spiritual Laws" points out that because a higher law than our own rules the world, there is no need for struggle. Other essays include "Character," "Prudence," "Intellect," "Love," "Beauty," "The American Scholar" address and others. Readers of all ages will want to keep this volume on hand to inspire and refresh the spirit
The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations
Eugene Linden - 2006
Climate has been humanity's constant, if moody, companion. At times benefactor or tormentor, climate nurtured the first stirrings of civilization and then repeatedly visited ruin on empires and peoples. Eugene Linden reveals a recurring pattern in which civilizations become prosperous and complacent during good weather, only to collapse when climate changes -- either through its direct effects, such as floods or drought, or indirect consequences, such as disease, blight, and civil disorder. The science of climate change is still young, and the interactions of climate with other historical forces are much debated, but the evidence mounts that climate loomed over the fate of societies from arctic Greenland to the Fertile Crescent and from the lost cities of the Mayans in Central America to the rain forests of Central Africa. Taking into account the uncertainties in both science and the historical record, Linden explores the evidence indicating that climate has been a serial killer of civilizations. The Winds of Change looks at the present and then to the future to determine whether the accused killer is on the prowl, and what it will do in the future. The tragedy of New Orleans is but the latest instance in which a region prepared for weather disasters experienced in the past finds itself helpless when nature ups the ante. In the closing chapters, Linden explores why warnings about the dangers of climate change have gone unheeded and what is happening with climate today, and he offers perhaps the most explicit look yet at what a haywire climate might do to us. He shows how even a society prepared to absorb such threshold-crossing events as Katrina, the killer heat wave in Europe in 2003, or the floods in the American Midwest in the 1990s can spiral into precipitous decline should such events intensify and become more frequent. The Winds of Change places climate change, global warming, and the resulting instability in historical context and sounds an urgent warning for the future.
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Michael Pollan - 2006
Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore's dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What's at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children's health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.The Omnivore's Dilemma is a groundbreaking book in which one of America's most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but, according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, ath the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather or grow ourselves?To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even mortal implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore's Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.
The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light
Paul Bogard - 2013
A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders, yet in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans' eyes never switch to night vision, and most no longer experience true darkness. In The End of Night, Paul Bogard restores awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art.From Las Vegas's Luxor Beam (the brightest single spot on this planet) to nights so starlit the sky looks like snow, Bogard blends personal narrative, natural history, science, and history to shed light on the importance of darkness--what we've lost, what we still have, and what we might regain--and the simple ways we can reduce the brightness of our nights tonight.
Eagles in the East SHORT story (Eagles of Rome series):
Ben Kane - 2020
ABOUT THE SHORT STORY’S PRICE: Hello, you lovely people. Odd to talk about money straight up, but I know that some of you might be thinking, £1.99/US$2.99/CDN$3.99/A$3.99 is a lot for a short story. Let me explain how it works in the UK. A rate of 20% VAT (Value Added Tax) applies to eBooks. This doesn’t apply to ‘real’ paper books. That means 33p of the £1.99 goes straight to the British government. Amazon takes around 2p to deliver the story to your Kindle, then takes another 48p as its cut. The remainder, £1.16, goes to me. That's not a great deal, I hope you agree. A roughly similar story applies in foreign territories. In these times of falling sales, and authors losing their contracts, and only one in seven traditionally published authors being able to write fulltime, stories like this are a vital way of YOU supporting the authors whose books you enjoy. So THANK YOU for your support! Think of it in terms of a pint of beer or a cup of coffee: they cost £2-4, depending on where you live in the UK. This story will give you more enjoyment (I think!) than either of those things, and last for a longer time, and cost you less money. This is the third time I have self-published a short story. (Massive thanks here to Pete Simpson, who designed the cover for me!) It’s been an exciting project since the day I did the poll on Facebook, asking you lovely people which of my characters you wanted me to write about. Centurion Tullus won out, narrowly, and this is the result. The one hundred and something people who backed the Kickstarter campaign got to read this story almost 7 months ago, but now you can too. Oh, what's it about? The war of the Batos, or the Pannonian War, which took place between AD 6 and 9, a general emergency that had almost 100.000 legionaries sent to modern-day Croatia to sort out the rebels. Enjoy the story, and please email me if you have any questions about it or anything else – ben@benkane.net Ben
The Dark Brotherhood: A Medieval Romance Collection
Kathryn Le Veque - 2020
Knights of blood and of war bring forth the very worst that Medieval brutality has to offer, but in that darkness, there is a ray of hope. Women of brightness shine the most when confronting the darkness within men. Be shocked at nothing within the pages of this collection, for these novels will take you into the blackness and back again, where love reigns supreme, even over evil.Romance comes in many shades, in many ways.This set contains:DarkWolfe – A de Wolfe son puts a tragic past behind him and finds love with an enemy.DarkMoon – A special ops knight finds an unexpected romance. Will it cost him a life-long friendship?Dark Steel – A happenstance creates a new duke – who falls into a surprising romance.The Dark Lord – The darkest lord of all finds a woman to tame his vicious ways.Guardian of Darkness – A noble knight and a Scottish hostage find love amidst a web of royal lies.The Dark Lord’s First Christmas – Bonus book! The Dark Lord discovers the meaning of Christmas.The original Medieval Romance novels with no cliffhangers, no cheating, and always with a Happily Ever After.
Lakeshore Chronicles #4-6: Snowfall at Willow Lake\Fireside\Lakeshore Christmas
Susan Wiggs - 2015
SNOWFALL AT WILLOW LAKE Sophie Bellamy has dedicated her life to helping people in war-torn countries. But after narrowly escaping a hostage situation, she yearns to return home to Avalon. There, Sophie discovers the surprising rewards of small-town life—including an unexpected passion for Noah Shepherd, the local veterinarian. FIRESIDE Baseball hopeful Bo Crutcher is about to get his shot at the majors. But when life throws him a curveball in the form of AJ, the son he's never met, Bo and his newly hired publicist Kimberly van Dorn begin to realize that they both have a lot to learn about the game of life…and putting love first. LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS Maureen Davenport is finally getting her shot to direct Avalon's annual holiday pageant, but her storybook notion of Christmas is disrupted when Eddie Haven is assigned to assist her. As they spar over every detail of the pageant, their passion for the perfect performance begins to blossom into something more.
Lost in the Wilderness
Mair Rubin - 2015
The men who live through the plane crash must make their way toward the mountains separating NWT from the Yukon Territory while surviving off the land, facing tragedy and the wild, and uncompromising land and animals they come across. This is a story of extreme survival, and a rescue attempt that is beyond belief.
Stone Barrington Adventures
Stuart Woods - 2012
Lucid Intervals Strategic Moves Bel-Air Dead
BOOM: Oil, Money, Cowboys, Strippers, and the Energy Rush That Could Change America Forever. A Long, Strange Journey Along the Keystone XL Pipeline (Kindle Single)
Tony Horwitz - 2014
Armed with maps and cheerful curiosity, he travels from the oil-drunk boomtown of Fort McMurray, Alberta (a.k.a. Fort McMoney), down to the empty North Dakota plains, where mountains of pipe lie in wait for the torrent of crude that could soon start to flow if, as expected, the White House approves the controversial plan to turn on the spigots that will deliver oil from Canada directly to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, Horwitz meets a cavalcade of characters, including ranchers who either love or loathe the idea of oil flowing beneath their land, “rig pigs” and “cement heads” who are eager to make a buck in the tar fields, and strippers and other local entrepreneurs who are ready to help them spend it. He drives miles of lonesome road in his quest to understand what this pipeline means to everyone involved—from Native Americans to environmentalists to industry bureaucrats. He sees firsthand not only how an oil spill can devastate acres of rich farmland but how a town can be saved by an influx of new jobs. Over homemade farm dinners and countless tavern beers, Horwitz realizes that there are no easy answers, no right or wrong, no heroes or villains. The questions surrounding America’s energy future go beyond pat declarations about independence from foreign oil or destruction of Mother Earth. They go, some believe, to the very meaning of freedom. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tony Horwitz is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who spent a decade as a foreign correspondent, mainly covering wars and conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe for the “Wall Street Journal.” His books include the bestsellers “Confederates in the Attic,” “Blue Latitudes,” “Baghdad Without a Map,” and “A Voyage Long and Strange.” His most recent, “Midnight Rising,” was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and one of the year’s ten best books by Library Journal and won the 2012 William Henry Seward Award for excellence in Civil War biography. Horwitz has also written for “The New Yorker” and “Smithsonian” and has been a fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute. He lives with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their sons, Nathaniel and Bizu, on Martha’s Vineyard. PRAISE FOR TONY HORWITZ “Horwitz wears himself lightly, and is extraordinarily good at drawing out strangers. Cheerfully energetic, he goes where a less intrepid reporter would not.” —Roy Blount, Jr., The New York Times “Like travel writer Bill Bryson, Horwitz has a penchant for meeting colorful characters and getting himself into bizarre situations.” —The Christian Science Monitor “Horwitz has an ear for a good yarn and an instinct for the trail leading to an entertaining anecdote.” —The Washington Post “A trip with Horwitz is as good as it gets.” —The Charlotte Observer
The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be
J.B. MacKinnon - 2013
MacKinnon realized the grassland he grew up on was not the pristine wilderness he had always believed it to be. Instead, his home prairie was the outcome of a long history of transformation, from the disappearance of the grizzly bear to the introduction of cattle. What remains today is an illusion of the wild--an illusion that has in many ways created our world. In 3 beautifully drawn parts, MacKinnon revisits a globe exuberant with life, where lions roam North America and 20 times more whales swim in the sea. He traces how humans destroyed that reality, out of rapaciousness, yes, but also through a great forgetting. Finally, he calls for an "age of restoration," not only to revisit that richer and more awe-filled world, but to reconnect with our truest human nature. MacKinnon never fails to remind us that nature is a menagerie of marvels. Here are fish that pass down the wisdom of elders, landscapes still shaped by "ecological ghosts," a tortoise that is slowly remaking prehistory. "It remains a beautiful world," MacKinnon writes, "and it is its beauty, not its emptiness, that should inspire us to seek more nature in our lives."
Islands of Abandonment
Cal Flyn - 2021
Investigative journalist Cal Flyn's ISLANDS OF ABANDONMENT, an exploration of the world's most desolate, abandoned places that have now been reclaimed by nature, from the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea to the "urban prairie" of Detroit to the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl, in an ultimately redemptive story about the power and promise of the natural world.
Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It
Jamie Margolin - 2020
Tiananmen Square, 1989. The 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests. March for Our Lives, and School Strike for Climate. What do all these social justice movements have in common? They were led by passionate, informed, engaged young people. Jamie Margolin has been organizing and protesting since she was fourteen years old. Now the co-leader of a global climate action movement, she knows better than most how powerful a young person can be. You don't have to be able to vote or hold positions of power to change the world. In Youth to Power, Jamie presents the essential guide to changemaking, with advice on writing and pitching op-eds, organizing successful events and peaceful protests, time management as a student activist, utilizing social media and traditional media to spread a message, and sustaining long-term action. She features interviews with prominent young activists including Tokata Iron Eyes of the #NoDAPL movement and Nupol Kiazolu of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, who give guidance on handling backlash, keeping your mental health a priority, and how to avoid getting taken advantage of. Jamie walks readers through every step of what effective, healthy, intersectional activism looks like. Young people have a lot to say. Youth to Power gives you the tools to raise your voice.