Book picks similar to
Meant to Be Wild: The Struggle to Save Endangered Species through Captive Breeding by Jan Deblieu
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The Wolf Border
Sarah Hall - 2015
She spends her days, and often nights, tracking the every move of a wild wolf pack—their size, their behavior, their howl patterns. It is a fairly solitary existence, but Rachel is content.When she receives a call from the wealthy and mysterious Earl of Annerdale, who is interested in reintroducing the grey wolf to Northern England, Rachel agrees to a meeting. She is certain she wants no part of this project, but the Earl's estate is close to the village where Rachel grew up, and where her aging mother now lives in a care facility. It has been far too long since Rachel has gone home, and so she returns to face the ghosts of her past.The Wolf Border is a breathtaking story about the frontier of the human spirit, from one of the most celebrated young writers working today.
REVIEW OF MCCONAUGHEY’S GREEN LIGHTS: A Candid and Inspirational Memoir to Spiritual and Personal Discovery
Charles A. Johnson - 2020
The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)
Katie Mack - 2020
With the Big Bang, it went from a state of unimaginable density to an all-encompassing cosmic fireball to a simmering fluid of matter and energy, laying down the seeds for everything from dark matter to black holes to one rocky planet orbiting a star near the edge of a spiral galaxy that happened to develop life. But what happens at the end of the story? In billions of years, humanity could still exist in some unrecognizable form, venturing out to distant space, finding new homes and building new civilizations. But the death of the universe is final. What might such a cataclysm look like? And what does it mean for us? Dr. Katie Mack has been contemplating these questions since she was eighteen, when her astronomy professor first informed her the universe could end at any moment, setting her on the path toward theoretical astrophysics. Now, with lively wit and humor, she unpacks them in The End of Everything, taking us on a mind-bending tour through each of the cosmos’ possible finales: the Big Crunch; the Heat Death; Vacuum Decay; the Big Rip; and the Bounce. In the tradition of Neil DeGrasse’s bestseller Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Mack guides us through major concepts in quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory, and much more, in a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of everything we know.
Brood
Jackie Polzin - 2021
From the forty-below nights of a brutal Minnesota winter to a sweltering summer which brings a surprise tornado, she battles predators, bad luck, and the uncertainty of a future that may not look anything like the one she always imagined. This book is a meditation on life and longing.
Cabin: An Alaska Wilderness Dream
Eric Wade - 2019
They chased away bears, marveled at giant eagles, stalked moose, and discovered a greater under-standing of family and nature. “A wonderful, addictive love song to the Alaskan wilderness.”—Charles Rangeley-Wilson, author of Silver Shoals and The Silt Road “A poet with an axe, a teacher on a river, forever learning and sharing.”—Kim Heacox, author of Jimmy Bluefeather and The Only Kayak “A tale of decades spent learning, enjoying and sharing a rare gift.”—Howard Weaver, writer and editor at the Anchorage Daily News, where he worked on both of the paper’s two Pulitzer Prize winning series “A soulful story of teacher turned student; a man bent on immersing himself in wilderness ways.”—Debra McKinney, author of Beyond the Bear “Belongs on the shelf of anyone contemplating finding their own version of the Alaska Dream.”—Tom Walker, author of Wild Shots: A Photographer’s Life in Alaska and We Live in the Alaskan Bush Eric Wade found the perfect place in the vast wilderness of interior Alaska to move his family. He climbed the river bank to walk on the firm forest floor. He wove through the trees, brushed aside rose bushes, and kicked the ground like checking a tire. The land spread before him with majestic white spruce and views of a sparkling clearwater river. His family would grow to love the landscape as much as he did . . . but over time, his dream changed, as did the land itself.
Fox & I
Catherine Raven - 2021
Drawn to the natural world, for years she worked as a ranger in National Parks, at times living in her run-down car (which lacked a reverse gear), on abandoned construction sites, or camping on a piece of land in Montana she bought from a colleague. She managed to put herself through college and then graduate school, eventually earning a Ph.D. in biology.Yet she never felt at home with people, and though she worked at various universities and taught field classes in the National Parks, she built a house on a remote plot of land in Montana and, except when teaching, spoke to no one. One day, she realized that the fox who had been appearing at her house was coming by every day at 4:15. He became a regular visitor, who eventually sat near her as she read to him from The Little Prince or Dr. Seuss. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, but as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself—and he became her friend. But friends cannot always save each other from the uncontained forces of nature.Though this is a story of survival, it is also a poignant and dramatic tale of living in the wilderness and coping with inevitable loss. This uplifting fable-like true story about the friendship of a woman and a wild fox not only reveals the power of friendship and our interconnectedness with the natural world but is an original, imaginative, and beautiful work that introduces a stunning new voice.
Forging On
Catherine Robinson - 2017
He's in his element when he's outside in the country air, not stuck in a classroom wasting his youth and the beauty of Yorkshire. When he starts as an apprentice farrier, his first few days are a baptism of fire. His fellow apprentice is a wind-up merchant and his gruff boss, Stanley, ribs him mercilessly about his tea drinking habit. But in this chaotic environment, the three of them form a brotherhood, and soon, Will realises that the coming year is going to teach him a lot more than how to shoe a horse properly...
Valley Walls: A Memoir of Climbing and Living in Yosemite
Glen Denny - 2016
Photographer Glen Denny was a key figure in this golden age of climbing, capturing pioneering feats on camera while tackling challenging ascents himself.In entertaining short pieces enlivened by his iconic black-and-white images of Yosemite's big wall legends, Denny reveals a young man's coming of age and provides a vivid look at Yosemite’s early climbing culture. He relates such precarious achievements as hauling water in glass gallon jugs up the east face of Washington Column, nailing the 750-foot Rostrum in a punishing heat wave, and dangling overnight on El Capitan’s Dihedral Wall in a lightning storm. Each true tale captures the spirit of historic Camp 4, where Denny and others plan the next big climb while living on the cheap and dodging park rangers.
Steel Dogs
Matthew Bracey - 2020
This action-packed tale follows Chris and Matthew Bracey (of London's renowned God's Own Junkyard Neon Museum) on a farcical and disturbing journey to bag a million quid. As the day of the deal approaches and the deal commences, everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. This is bad luck at its worst. The humiliating truth of what went on in China, Matthew and Chris made a pact to not spill the beans, saying "what happened in China, stays in China." But now after one last request from his dying fathers deathbed to write the book, that is now not the case. Matthew lifts the lid on the untold story.
Latitudes of Longing
Shubhangi Swarup - 2018
The novel sweeps across India, from an island, to a valley, a city, and a snow desert to tell a love story of epic proportions. We follow a scientist who studies trees and a clairvoyant who speaks to them; a geologist working to end futile wars over a glacier; octogenarian lovers; a mother struggling to free her revolutionary son; a yeti who seeks human companionship; a turtle who transforms first into a boat and then a woman; and the ghost of an evaporated ocean as restless as the continents. Binding them all together is a vision of life as vast as the universe itself. A young writer awarded one of the most prestigious prizes in India for this novel, Shubhangi Swarup is a storyteller of extraordinary talent and insight. Richly imaginative and wryly perceptive, Latitudes of Longing offers a soaring view of humanity: our beauty and ugliness, our capacity to harm and love each other, and our mysterious and sacred relationship with nature.
Rykers Security
Isabella Hunt - 2018
For five years, I’ve known one thing, and that is that my stepsister is my fated mate. I’ve felt the pull to her, and it’s undeniable. When my alpha sent me on a mission to bring back a wolf shifter, who had taken up residence in her town, I was hoping and fearing that I’d see her again. And my hopes and fears became reality on my first day there. She was the wolf. And my alpha wants her. Liam My mission was simple. I had to search for the missing journalist, Rebecca Schmidt, and find out if she was alive and well. While I did find her, I didn’t expect to feel such a magnetic pull towards a complete stranger. When she was attacked outside the bed and breakfast, I knew I had to help. When my father, Conner, and Kody came to help me get to the bottom of why werewolves were after Rebecca, Kody sensed something “off” about her. That there's darkness in her. I only hope I can keep Rebecca safe and get to the bottom of why she’s being targeted, and in the meantime, I pray that she feels the same undeniable draw towards me as I do towards her. Stone When Vicki Grant hired Blaire and I to find out who had killed her twin sister and her unborn baby, we knew it would be a tough one. We hit dead end after dead end, but—for some reason—I didn’t want to give up. One minor twist of fate, and our cold case was picking up speed. While I wanted to help Vicki discover who killed her twin, I didn’t want to do it at the expense of her life. I may not have all the answers, but the one thing I did know was that this sexy, beautiful, intelligent woman was my mate, my forever, and I’d do whatever I could to keep her safe. Rose Those eyes…where have I seen those eyes before? They are emerald green and they look remarkably like the eyes of the giant wolf I encountered in the woods. Yet…they belong to the incredibly sexy Max Ryker, who is most certainly a man in every sense of the word. I find myself returning to the woods that is part of the Ryker ranch. It’s like I’m drawn to it, even though my aunt and uncle have warned me to stay away from the Rykers. As I get to know Max Ryker and his mom and brother, I find that—even if the rumors are true, that his mom is a witch—I cannot stay away. I have a gut feeling that the Rykers are not what they seem, but will I have to give up a normal life to experience life with Max? Or can I have it all?
The Ariane Trilogy: The Complete Series
Michelle Dare - 2019
A kept secret. A life altered. A new journey. Ariane lived her life one book at a time. She would never have guessed those books were about to change everything. They led her to Orion. Tall, dark, with eyes only for her. The rest of the world ceased to exist when Orion was around. But during a fateful ash moon, he shifted into a wolf. Ari thought she was dreaming, but she’d recognize those eyes anywhere. Fiction became reality. Fantasy was actually history. And soon, Ari would learn her role in it. A pack war was on the horizon, and she was the only one who could stop it. Nothing would ever be as it once was, because Ariane was now part of the Avynwood Pack. With over 8 million pages read in Kindle Unlimited, find out why everyone is falling for the paranormals in this romance trilogy. "One of the best written paranormal offerings I’ve found this year." - Crystal M., Amazon Reviewer ★★★★★ "Completely obsessed with this new series!! Total must read!" - TracyB, Amazon Reviewer ★★★★★ "This story is AMAZING. I think the plot is genius." - Nina, Amazon Reviewer ★★★★★ "Well written, passionate characters, suspense, twists and turns. So good!" - Nikki B, Amazon Reviewer ★★★★★
Meditations with Cows: What I've Learned from Daisy, the Dairy Cow Who Changed My Life
Shreve Stockton - 2020
In Meditations with Cows, Shreve Stockton inspires a more reverential attitude toward these affectionate and intelligent creatures as she shares captivating stories and photos of ranch life. At the center of the narrative is Daisy, the matriarch of the herd. Through the daily ritual of milking, Stockton forges a relationship with Daisy that deepens with each passing season: When you have a milk cow, you are together every day, no matter the weather, no matter either of your moods. The hind leg of this twelve-hundred-pound animal towers over you as you crouch beside her... both of you aware of the fact that one well-aimed kick could kill you if she wished. Yet you are allowed to rest your cheek and forehead against her warm belly as you milk... her trust in you entwined with your trust in her, you become family. For anyone who loves animals or cares about the environmental impact of their food, Stockton explores conservation and the important role of cattle in local ecosystems, models the humane treatment of animals, and shows how pastured cattle can be our allies in averting climate crisis. Blending together narrative, science, and thoughtful reflection, Meditations with Cows offers a moving portrait of the rhythms of work, life, and hardship on the ranch.
Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive
Carl Zimmer - 2021
Is the apple sitting on your kitchen counter alive, or is only the apple tree it came from deserving of the word? If we can't answer that question here on earth, how will we know when and if we discover alien life on other worlds? The question hangs over some of society's most charged conflicts--whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead.Charting the obsession with Dr. Frankenstein's monster and how Coleridge came to believe the whole universe was alive, Zimmer leads us all the way into the labs and minds of researchers working on engineering life from the ground up.
Sam Bloom: Heartache & Birdsong
Bradley Trevor Greive - 2020
Sam's personal message at the end of the book has resonated powerfully with readers - where, pulling no punches, she writes about what it is really like to face life in a wheelchair.In Sam Bloom, Sam tells her own story for the first time - how a shy but determined Australian girl became a nurse and travelled across Africa. How she fell in love with a like-minded free spirit, raised three boys and built a life together on Sydney's Northern Beaches. And then, in a single horrific moment, how everything changed. Sam's journey back from the edge of death and the depths of despair is so much more than an account of overcoming adversity. Sam's captivating true story - written by close friend, New York Times bestselling author Bradley Trevor Greive, and featuring extraordinary photographs taken by Sam's husband, Cameron Bloom - is humbling, heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure. A triumph of raw emotion and incredible beauty, Sam Bloom: Heartache & Birdsong is a truly unforgettable book.Penguin Bloom is soon to be a major motion picture starring Naomi Watts, Andrew Lincoln, Jacki Weaver and Rachel House.PRAISE FOR PENGUIN BLOOM 'A unique and remarkable insight into a family dealing with tragedy and finding their way through it with love, courage and hope' - Naomi Watts'a coffee-table book that will make hearts soar' - Daily Telegraph