Now he must survive on his own navigating the treacherous outer fringes of the wolf provinces, dangerously close to where the new predator wages war on the wolf. It is here, in an anarchic enclave where meatdrunk ramblefoots plunder the bountiful treasures of man, that Raspail comes to prominence as a legend among wolves. But Raspail has no interest in power, only Kileo, the love he was torn from. With old foes waiting to assassinate him and Cob Ash recently allied with hostile neighbor Draguignon, Raspail will need to unite the lawless ramblefooots and conquer Cob Ash if he is to ever see Kileo again. With a keen eye for the extraordinary in nature, and a portrayal of wolf culture that is both meticulously researched and then fantastically extrapolated on, Ramblefoot is a thrilling adventure that will immerse you in its sprawling mythology from the first sentence.

    and sets in motion this powerful - and unusual - collection of animal stories for adults.There is mystery and terror in the great woodland, and there is love. It is a world where fear and death and the survival of the fittest are the pitiless underlying themes. Though they are loosely linked, the stories are written to be read as separate tales, usually with a single main character: an ugly, love-lost squirrel, a wantonly savage stoat, a bat, a veteran hare running before the hounds. They are suspense thrillers or romantic interludes, pure adventure narratives, even horror stories; they all draw us deep into the stern forest through the elements we share with the animals - cold and dark, rain and sun, suspicion, loyalty, the need for warmth and the safety of shelter - above all, the feeling that, even in a world where death is inevitable, there is always enough to make life worth living.The style is clear, straightforward, often very simple, but there is passion as well as knowledge in the book. It brings the wild creates fiercely to life, in a disturbing way, with menace and unease - but vividly, in a literary debut of great imaginative strength.

    Where they are greedy, he is generous. But for all that Saxton believes in honor and love, kindness and courage, other animals deem him no better than the moniker his kind is fated to bear: Lonely Thief.Meanwhile, Dante, a battle-worn wolf missing an eye and an ear, left his pack for reasons he keeps close to his chest. One too many bad memories has left him cynical, and yet he somehow remains faithful to a fault. His lonely life, plagued by misfortune and dishonor, changes forever the day he meets Saxton.Thrown together by fate, this unlikely duo travel across the North American continent, chasing trains, fighting hunger, evading man, and confronting their own inner demons— all while searching for redemption, family, and a place to call home.

    For a hundred generations the badgers of Cilgwyn had lived in harmony with nature, digging their setts and reciting their ancient lays to the young amongst the nodding bluebells and flowering blackthorn of their ancestral valley home - until a dying stranger limped into their midst.Bamber told of the coming of men to his own home many miles away, men whose scent had inexplicably terrified him, men armed with rifles and poison gas, who had slain his beloved Dainty and were advancing yet, destroying without mercy every badger colony in their path.

    A fisher survives his first year in the wilderness through the help of a kind Ojibway.

    It's North America, but very little of what you know is the same. The sun still shines and the grass still grows, but there are no people. There are, or perhaps there aren't, twelve Curials -- kit fox, dolphin, raven, lioness, and the rest -- who intervene in the lives of the inhabitants. There are the inhabitants, a myriad of animals: mice, otters, meekrats, and buffalo, to name a few. They live in their towns and cities, pursuing various occupations, having occasional celebrations...and now and then they live in fear.In fear of the Blood Jaguar, the thirteenth Curial, who returns from time to time and visits a horrible plague on the world, nearly killing it entirely. At such times, a fisher, a skink, and a bobcat are somehow impelled to go on a quest to stop her. They always fail. There is no reason to think that this time, of all times, Bobcat will somehow not fail.

    Aided only by a fox they call ''the Tod,'' the two dogs must struggle to survive in their new environment. When the starving dogs attack some sheep, they are labeled ferocious man-eating monsters, setting off a great dog hunt that is later intensified by the fear that the dogs could be carriers of the bubonic plague.

    (Nancy Pearl)

    If only he could open the door. Nelson whimpers his final goodbye to Rascal, his canine soulmate, their paws almost touching through the heavy glass that separates them. Succumbing to the smoke, his life drifts slowly before him. Nelson was born deep in the French Alps, where his only worries were how snow could be both soft and hard and why it made the house sink. And whose turn it was to fetch the baguettes from the boulangerie. So how could puppy love be so cruel? And how ever did he find himself lost and lonely in England? His dogged wanderings eventually led him to David and his son Timothy, a young boy with autism. Life was once again full of joy. Until now, trapped in the fire, Nelson's luck has surely deserted him. But he can't die yet! He has an amazing tale to tell - and an amazing tail to tell it with. And with Rascal there to help, Nelson has no choice but to survive.

    . .Secure in a world of privilege and comfort, the kitten Tag is happy as a pampered house pet--until the dreams come. Dreams that pour into his safe, snug world from the wise old cat Majicou: hazy images of travel along the magical highways of the animals, of a mission, and of a terrible responsibility that will fall on young Tag. Armed with the cryptic message that he must bring the King and Queen of cats to Tintagel before the spring equinox, Tag ventures outside. Meanwhile, an evil human known only as the Alchemist doggedly hunts the Queen for his own ghastly ends. And if the Alchemist captures her, the world will never be safe again . . .

    This is the story of their love, and their epic struggle to find it.The moles of Duncton Wood are a varied lot. There are the aggressive Westsiders, the secretive and sickly Marchenders and the independent Eastsiders. Despite their differences, all are members of the same once proud and famous mole system, and all are now the tyrannised by Mandrake a mole so powerful and senselessly destructive that his name seems a curse on those who utter it.But the source of the evil that spreads through Duncton lies not only in Mandrake but in the growing disinterest in the rites and traditions that surround the now deserted standing Stone that was once the heart of the system itself.It is in the shadow of this towering stone that the lonely Bracken by chance meets Rebecca, daughter of Mandrake. They exchange a few words and scurry off in the different directions, never to forget a moment which will change the course of their lives for ever. Only Hulver the Elder, guardian of the old ways, understands that the future happiness of the system depends on their love, and the courage with which they can pursue its suffering and joy.Accompanied by Boswell, the strange scribemole from Uffington, Bracken sets out to revive the ancient rituals and disperse the evil from Duncton. Together they seek the sacred seventh stillstone.

    When he was fourteen years old and beset by chronic ill health, Patrick O'Brian began creating his first fictional character. "I did it in my bedroom, and a little when I should have been doing my homework," he confessed in a note on the original dust-jacket. Caesar tells the picaresque, enchanting, and quite bloodthirsty story of a creature whose father is a giant panda and whose mother is a snow leopard. Through the eyes and voice of this fabulous creature, we learn of his life as a cub, his first hunting exploits, his first encounters with man, his capture and taming. Caesar was published in 1930, three months after O'Brian's fifteenth birthday, but the dry wit and unsentimental precision O'Brian readers savor in the Aubrey/Maturin series is already in evidence. The book combines Stephen Maturin's fascination and encyclopedic knowledge of natural history with the narrative charm of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. It was published in England and the United States, and in translation in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Japan. Reviews hailed the author as the "boy-Thoreau." "We can see here a true storyteller in the making....a gripping narrative, which holds the reader's attention and never flags."—The Spectator

    A Zoo in My Luggage begins with an account of Durrell’s third trip to the British Cameroons in West Africa, during which he and his wife capture animals to start their own zoo. Returning to England with a few additions to their family—Cholmondeley the chimpanzee, Bug-eye the bush baby, and others—they have nowhere to put them as they haven’t yet secured a place for their zoo. Durrell’s account of how he manages his menagerie in all sorts of places throughout England while finding a permanent home for the animals provides as much adventure as capturing them. For animal lovers of all ages, A Zoo in My Luggage is the romping true story of the boy who grew up to make a Noah’s Ark of his own.

    Fossey's extraordinary efforts to ensure the future of the rain forest and its remaining mountain gorillas are captured in her own words and in candid photographs of this fascinating endangered species. As only she could, Fossey combined her personal adventure story with groundbreaking scientific reporting in an unforgettable portrait of one of our closest primate relatives. Although Fossey's work ended tragically in her murder, Gorillas in the Mist remains an invaluable testament to one of the longest-running field studies of primates and reveals her undying passion for her subject.

    Pedlar, a yellow-necked mouse, has reached that point. Told to leave the Hedgerow and go on a long journey, the adventurous mouse says his farewells and sets out for a far-distant country knows as The House. Reaching his destination, Pedlar enters a strange new world inhabited by many warring tribes: the Stinkhorns of the cellar, the great Savage Tribe in the kitchen, the library Bookeaters, the Invisibles, the Deathshead and the rebellious 13-K Gang.