It is divided into two parts.Part 1, "The Sporting Scene," consists of pieces on fishing, football, golf, and lacrosse--from fly casting for chain pickerel in fall in New Hampshire to walking the linksland of St. Andrews at an Open Championship. Part 2, called "An Album Quilt," is a montage of fragments of varying length from pieces done across the years that have never appeared in book form--occasional pieces, memorial pieces, reflections, reminiscences, and short items in various magazines including The New Yorker. They range from a visit to the Hershey chocolate factory to encounters with Oscar Hammerstein, Joan Baez, and Mount Denali.Emphatically, the author's purpose was not merely to preserve things but to choose passages that might entertain contemporary readers. Starting with 250,000 words, he gradually threw out 75 percent of them, and randomly assembled the remaining fragments into "an album quilt." Among other things, The Patch is a covert memoir.

    She’d never hear him again if she didn’t survive the tragedy…Marie Lindstrom was ready to take on the world. After months of research poured into planning a birthday trip to remember, the mother of two beamed with happiness as they touched down in Thailand. And she was positive they were bound for a trek full of lasting memories… until the tsunami wave hit.Terrified by the prospect of losing all she held dear, Marie struggled to keep her head above water after being swept underground and enshrouded in darkness. But even after the catastrophe passed and she embraced what remained, the guilt accompanying her survival proved staggering.Would the soul-wrenching pain tear her apart or be miraculously transformative?No. 204 is Going Home is a heart-shaking memoir about the unbreakable strength of motherhood. If you like honest depictions of disaster, raw emotional transformations, and moving accounts of healing, then you’ll love Marie Lindstrom’s sail through calamity.Buy No. 204 is Going Home to stare into the maw of real-life terror today!

    During the year as they cross-country ski, hike, bicycle, canoe, and backpack into Yellowstone's grandeur, Rick digs into important controversies: the outrage over the proposed removal of grizzlies from the endangered species list; the dispute over hunting park wolves along Yellowstone's border; the debate about whether wolves help or harm the ecosystem and the economy; the fight to stop the slaughter of park bison; the overuse of the park; and their community's battle to prevent gold mining on the park's border. Rick ends the year with a stronger love for Yellowstone's grandeur, a deeper knowledge of the controversies threatening the park, and a desire to inspire readers to protect our nation's first national park.

    And in this cutthroat $200 million business, no one made more money than—or posed as great an ecological danger as—Yoshi Kojima, the kingpin of butterfly smugglers. Determined to capture Kojima, rookie U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agent Ed Newcomer became close to the smuggler, posing as a young apprentice eager to learn the smuggling trade. But twice the agent's inexperience allowed this criminal, with a nearly supernatural sense of survival and an overwhelming sense of paranoia, to get away. Just when it seemed Kojima was out of reach, Newcomer was given one last chance to reel him in. Somewhere in the hunt, Kojima had become obsessed with the agent. This obsession, along with his continued mania for butterflies, could finally spell the downfall of the untouchable smuggler. But the story doesn't end there. Working under-cover to research this book, Jessica Speart befriended Kojima as well. Like Newcomer, she was going to betray Kojima. What she didn't know was that this cagey smuggler was planning to turn the tables and use her as a patsy for continuing his illegal butterfly trade.

     A powerful, heart-warming and inspiring memoir from the UK's most famous and beloved vet, Professor Noel Fitzpatrick - star of the Channel 4 series The Supervet. Growing up on the family farm in Ballyfin, Ireland, Noel's childhood was spent tending to the cattle and sheep, the hay and silage, the tractors and land, his beloved sheepdog Pirate providing solace from the bullies that plagued him at school. It was this bond with Pirate, and a fateful night spent desperately trying to save a newborn lamb, that inspired Noel to enter the world of veterinary science - and set him on the path to becoming The Supervet.Now, in this long-awaited memoir, Noel recounts this often-surprising journey that sees him leaving behind a farm animal practice in rural Ireland to set up Fitzpatrick Referrals in Surrey, one of the most advanced small animal specialist centres in the world. We meet the animals that paved the way, from calving cows and corralling bullocks to talkative parrots and bionic cats and dogs. Noel has listened to the many lessons that the animals in his care have taught him, and especially the times he has shared with his beloved Keira, the scruffy Border Terrier who has been by Noel's side as he's dealt with the unbelievable highs and crushing lows of his extraordinary career. As heart-warming and life-affirming as the TV show with which he made his name, Listening to the Animals is a story of love, hope and compassion, and about rejoicing in the bond between humans and animals that makes us the very best we can be.

    In the 1980s celebrated writer Douglas Adams teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine and together they embarked on a groundbreaking expedition, travelling the globe in search of the world's endangered animals. Twenty years later, comic genius Stephen Fry is returning with Mark to see if the species still exist. A major BBC television series follows the two on six separate journeys which take them to the Amazon basin, East Africa, Madagascar, New Zealand, Indonesia and Mexico to look for a flightless parrot, the Amazonian manatee, man-eating Komodo dragons, man's closest living relative, the northern white rhino and an animal so bizarre it seems to have been assembled from bits of other creatures. These are not just travels to the four corners of the world, but a journey in time to open our eyes to what humans have done to the Earth in the 20 years since the original Last Chance to See expeditions. It is a unique insight into the disappearing world around us, by one of the most extraordinary, informed, enthusiastic and amusing partnerships.

    Why on earth has the entirely land-loving Eastern mole been named "Scalopus Aquaticus" or the Oxford ragwort been called "Senecio Squalidus" (translation: "dirty old man")? What were naturalists thinking when they called a beetle "Agra Katewinsletae," a genus of fish "Batman," and a trilobite "Han Solo"? Why is zoology replete with names such as "Chloris Chloris Chloris" (the greenfinch) and "Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla" (a species of, well, gorilla)? The Naming of the Shrew will unveil these mysteries, exploring the history, celebrating their poetic nature, and revealing how naturalists sometimes get things so terribly wrong. With wonderfully witty style and captivating narrative, this book will make you see Latin names in a whole new light.

    But small, easy actions, if taken by enough people, can move mountains – and save planets.Written in collaboration with leading environmental experts from WWF, this short book provides simple changes we can all make to our everyday lives, from morning to night.These aren’t the only things you can do. Nor are they things you have to do. But these 12 small acts are basic steps anybody can take, and if even one of them sticks, our children will inherit a better world.Acts like:– Turning off devices instead of leaving them on standby– Buying less cotton clothing (a T-shirt needs 2,400 litres of water to make!)– Using reusable straws when possible– Turning off the tap while you brush your teethwill take only moments, but if enough people commit to them, we can make a real difference to our planet._______________________________'Now really is the time to act. You don’t have to be a superhero – everyone can make a difference by following this book’ – Ben Fogle

    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.

    Decluttering. A parent's death. Sooner or later, all of us are faced with things we no longer need or want. But when we drop our old clothes and other items off at a local donation center, where do they go? Sometimes across the country-or even halfway across the world-to people and places who find value in what we leave behind.In Secondhand, journalist Adam Minter takes us on an unexpected adventure into the often-hidden, multibillion-dollar industry of reuse: thrift stores in the American Southwest to vintage shops in Tokyo, flea markets in Southeast Asia to used-goods enterprises in Ghana, and more. Along the way, Minter meets the fascinating people who handle-and profit from-our rising tide of discarded stuff, and asks a pressing question: In a world that craves shiny and new, is there room for it all?Secondhand offers hopeful answers and hard truths. A history of the stuff we've used and a contemplation of why we keep buying more, it also reveals the marketing practices, design failures, and racial prejudices that push used items into landfills instead of new homes. Secondhand shows us that it doesn't have to be this way, and what really needs to change to build a sustainable future free of excess stuff.

    Curious about what had prompted a young urban artist to suddenly embrace nature she decided to follow him for a year to find out.Observing two artists through seasonal shifts and migrations, Birds Art Life celebrates the particular madness of chasing after birds in a big city, and explores what happens when the principles of birdwatching are applied to other aspects of art and life. It looks at the ecology of urban spaces and the creative and liberating effects of keeping your eyes and ears wide open. Far from seeking the exotic, Kyo discovers joy in the birds she spots in city parks and harbours, along eaves and on wires. In a world that values big and fast, Kyo begins to look to the small, steady, slow accumulations of knowledge, and the lulls that give way to contemplation.Moving between the granular and the grand, peering into the inner landscape as much as the outer one, Birds Art Life asks how we are shaped and nurtured by our passions, and how we might come to love and protect not only the world’s natural places but also the challenging urban spaces where so many of us live.

    In 1971 he was discovered on the remote Galapagos island of Pinta, from which tortoises had supposedly been exterminated by greedy whalers and seal hunters. He has been at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz island ever since, on the off-chance that scientific ingenuity will conjure up a way of reproducing him and resurrecting his species. Meanwhile a million tourists and dozens of baffled scientists have looked on as the celebrity reptile shows not a jot of interest in the female company provided. Today, Lonesome George has come to embody the mystery, complexity and fragility of the unique Galapagos archipelago. His story echoes the challenges of conservation worldwide; it is a story of Darwin, sexual dysfunction, adventure on the high seas, cloning, DNA fingerprinting and eco-tourism.

    She eats road kill, wrestles alligators, rides horses bareback, and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built herself in an island wilderness. She’s had three husbands and many lovers, one of whom she shot and killed in self-defense. A combination of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Goodall, Carol is a self-taught scientist who has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island, a national park off the coast of Georgia.Cumberland is the country's largest and most biologically diverse barrier island—over forty square miles of pristine wilderness celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie owned much of Cumberland, and his widow Lucy made it a Gilded Age playground. But in recent years, Carnegie heirs and the National Park Service have clashed with Carol over the island’s future. What happens when a dirt-poor naturalist with only a high-school diploma tries to stop one of the wealthiest families in America? Untamed is the story of an American original standing her ground and fighting for what she believes in, no matter the cost.

    Morell probes the moral and ethical dilemmas of recognizing that even “lesser animals” have cognitive abilities such as memory, feelings, personality, and self-awareness--traits that many in the twentieth century felt were unique to human beings.By standing behaviorism on its head, Morell brings the world of nature brilliantly alive in a nuanced, deeply felt appreciation of the human-animal bond, and she shares her admiration for the men and women who have simultaneously chipped away at what we think makes us distinctive while offering a glimpse of where our own abilities come from.

    However, he is also a card-carrying member of the American Fern Society, and since childhood has been fascinated by these primitive plants and their ability to survive and adapt in many climates. Oaxaca Journal is Sacks's spellbinding account of his trip with a group of fellow fern enthusiasts to the beautiful, history-steeped province of Oaxaca, Mexico. Bringing together Sacks's passion for natural history and the richness of human culture with his sharp eye for detail, Oaxaca Journal is a captivating evocation of a place, its plants, its people, and its myriad wonders.