Eighty-seven at the time of writing and an internationally renowned figure, he vividly describes expeditions to almost every part of the subcontinent, including the old Princely States, Burma, Sikkim, Tibet, Bhutan and Afghanistan. As he tells of his life as motorcyclist, timber merchant, scientist, author and decorated celebrity, a picture also emerges of pre-independent India, of Maharajas and colonial administration.

    Living with Wolves will be released simultaneously with a 2-hour documentary of the same name on the Discovery Channel. The book includes a 60-minute audio CD of wolf vocalizations. The Dutchers call for preserving wild places with contiguous wildlife corridors that allow for a sustainable ecosystem for wolves, and one that would preclude the clashes with ranchers and encroaching civilization that are threatening the wolf with rapid extinction.

     What drives a man to travel to sixty countries and spend a fortune to count birds? And what if that man is your father? Richard Koeppel's obsession began at the age of eleven, in Queens, New York, when he first spotted a Brown Thrasher and promptly jotted the sighting in a notebook. Several decades, one failed marriage, and two sons later, he added an astonishing 517 birds to that list on a single trip to Kenya. Soon after, he ended the last romantic relationship he would ever have, scaled down his medical practice, and decided to see every bird on earth, becoming a "Big Lister," a member of a subculture of competitive bird-watchers worldwide, all pursuing the same goal. Over twenty-five years, he collected more than 7,000 species (of a known 9,600), becoming one of about ten people ever to do so. "To See Every Bird on Earth" explores the thrill of this chase, the all-absorbing crusade at the expense of all else, and travel, to places both dangerous and dull, for the sake of making a check mark in a notebook. It's also the story of obsession-answering the questions why list? and why birds?-and how it defines us. A riveting glimpse into a fascinating subculture, To See Every Bird on Earth traces the love, loss, and reconnection between a father and a son, and explains why birds are so critical to the human search for our place in the world.

    In reality this is not the case at all. We all have the tendency to overestimate our rationality to the point of denying reality. The many ways in which we do this are collectively called cognitive biases. Our brain may be the most complicated thinking machine but it is not without limitations. In our attempt to understand the world around us through our lens we simplify things and fall prey to cognitive biases. Sometimes these biases are caused by heuristics or mental shortcuts which help us reach quick judgments when we have little time. At other times our judgment is clouded by situational factors and inner motivations and emotions.However we are not completely helpless in this aspect. Knowing these biases exist can help us avoid them through conscious efforts. We need to be able to recognize these biases in our decision making. They are inevitable in most cases but they are not impossible to bypass.

    . .In You Are Here, bestselling author and celebrated astronaut Chris Hadfield creates a virtual orbit of Earth, giving us the really big picture: this is our home, from space. The millions of us who followed Hadfield's news-making Twitter feed from the ISS thought we knew what we were looking at when we first saw his photos. But we may have caught the beauty and missed the full meaning. Now, through photographs - many of which have never been shared - Hadfield unveils a fresh and insightful look at our planet. He sees astonishing detail and importance in these images, not just because he's spent months in space but because his in-depth knowledge of geology, geography and meteorology allows him to reveal the photos' mysteries.Featuring Hadfield's favourite images, You Are Here is divided by continent and represents one (idealized) orbit of the ISS. This planetary photo tour - surprising, playful, thought-provoking and visually delightful - provides a breathtakingly beautiful perspective on the wonders of the world. You Are Here opens a singular window on our planet, using remarkable photographs to illuminate the history and consequences of human settlement, the magnificence of newly uncovered landscapes, and the power of the natural forces shaping our world and the future of our species.

    facilities. For Hargrove, becoming an orca trainer fulfilled a childhood dream. However, as his experience with the whales deepened, Hargrove came to doubt that their needs could ever be met in captivity. When two fellow trainers were killed by orcas in marine parks, Hargrove decided that SeaWorld's wildly popular programs were both detrimental to the whales and ultimately unsafe for trainers.After leaving SeaWorld, Hargrove became one of the stars of the controversial documentary Blackfish. The outcry over the treatment of SeaWorld's orca has now expanded beyond the outlines sketched by the award-winning documentary, with Hargrove contributing his expertise to an advocacy movement that is convincing both federal and state governments to act.In Beneath the Surface, Hargrove paints a compelling portrait of these highly intelligent and social creatures, including his favorite whales Takara and her mother Kasatka, two of the most dominant orcas in SeaWorld. And he includes vibrant descriptions of the lives of orcas in the wild, contrasting their freedom in the ocean with their lives in SeaWorld.Hargrove's journey is one that humanity has just begun to take-toward the realization that the relationship between the human and animal worlds must be radically rethought.

    She is placed in a foster home, following an operation to amputate one of her front legs, and she hopes that she can stay there forever. When she finds out she can't, she worries that she will never find a home. Who would want a dog with only three legs after all? Then a close encounter with a dangerous stranger changes everything... Told in her own voice, "Jessica's Diary" follows the thoughts and feelings of a lost little puppy, trying to negotiate a world filled with uncertainty and people with unknown intentions. Inspired by a true story. This is a short story of approximately 30 print pages

    

    Are you ready for the competition? From the persevering emperor penguins of the South Pole to the brave bacteria inside bubbling volcanoes, from the hardy reptiles of the driest deserts to the squash-proof creatures of the deepest seabeds, animals have adapted to survive in conditions that would kill a human faster than you can say "coffin." Discover how they do it in this amazing natural history book from a celebrated team -- and find out who wins the title of the toughtest animal of them all!

    . . Excellent work."--Tim Flannery, The New York Review of BooksIn the century and a half since Audubon's death, his name has become synonymous with wildlife conservation and natural history. But few people know what a complicated figure he was--or the dramatic story behind The Birds of America.Before Audubon, ornithological illustrations depicted scaled-down birds perched in static poses. Wheeling beneath storm-racked skies or ripping flesh from freshly killed prey, Audubon's life-size birds looked as if they might fly screeching off the page. The wildness in the images matched the untamed spirit in Audubon-a self-taught painter and self-anointed aristocrat who, with his buckskins and long hair, wanted to be seen as both a hardened frontiersman and a cultured man of science. In truth, neither his friends nor his detractors ever knew exactly who Audubon was or where he came from. Tormented by a fog of ambiguities surrounding his birth, he reinvented himself ceaselessly, creating a life as dramatic as his fictionalizations of it. But when he came east at thirty-eight-broke and desperate to find a publisher for his Birds-he ran squarely into a scientific establishment still wedded to convention and suspicious of the brash newcomer and his grandiose claims. It took Audubon fifteen years to prevail in both his project and his vision. How he triumphed and what drove him is the subject of this gripping narrative.

    This collection of favorites and never-before-seen photos will have you barking for more! For all you hoomins, a LOLdog is a kay-nine picture with a funny, misspelled caption.

    Helen Macdonald's bestselling debut H is for Hawk brought the astonishing story of her relationship with goshawk Mabel to global critical acclaim and announced Macdonald as one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers. H is for Hawk won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction and the Costa Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, launching poet and falconer Macdonald as our preeminent nature essayist, with a semi-regular column in the New York Times Magazine.In Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing songbirds from the Empire State Building as they migrate through the Tribute of Light, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk's poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds' nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife. By one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers, Vesper Flights is a captivating and foundational book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make sense of the world around us.

    It considers the diversity and biology of bees, including their peculiar sociosexual arrangements (pity the poor drone), their quirky relationships with flowers, and their startling mental abilities: What are we to make of insects that communicate through symbolic dances? The book also addresses the mysterious syndrome known as colony collapse disorder and identifies opportunities for the conservation of pollinators.Enriched with cultural sidebars and complemented by a stunning collection of images, Bees is a must-read for conservationists, gardeners, and everyone else who cares about the world around them.Published in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation.Also available in paperback.

    Finally, the collected wit and wisdom of the magazine's most irreverent and beloved columnist can be found in a single A - Z volume, providing gardeners from coast-to-coast with his valuable tips for planting, troubleshooting, and growing flowers, vegetables, shrubs, trees and more, all delivered in his signature cantankerous style.Sidebars throughout the book - "Ask Grumpy" - help readers tackle common garden problems ("How do I get ride of little house ants?"), and readers from the past 35 years take part in the book when Grumpy shares his favorite reader's responses to some of his advice, his favorite rules for gardening, and Q & A's covering your favorite plants and flowers are all inside. Additionally, beautiful line-drawings and illustrations throughout make the book as beautiful to look at as well as entertaining to read.The Grumpy Gardener is sure to become the most trusted tool in your gardening shed!

    In its companion volume River Notes, Lopez takes us into a different country where a nameless river flows through an animated world of herons, bears, and human beings.There is violence here, in the conflict of natural forces, in the people touching the river. There are landscapes, physical and spiritual, that we have not sensed, rituals we have not understood. Like the earlier peoples of our land, and like few American writers who have reentered this world, Barry Lopez respects the river and its imperatives, understands the language of cottonwoods and the salmon, and brings us in an extraordinary dance with a heron to the oneness with nature which is our heritage. ... [i]n these haunting, passionate stories Lopez brings us home to a deeply comforting unity with the natural world.From the first-edition dustjacket.