Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America


Douglas Brinkley - 2016
    Now, in Rightful Heritage, Brinkley turns his attention to the other indefatigable environmental leader—Teddy’s distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, chronicling his essential yet under-sung legacy as the founder of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and premier protector of America’s public lands. FDR built from scratch dozens of State Park systems and scenic roadways. Pristine landscapes such as the Great Smokies, the Everglades, Joshua Tree, the Olympics, Big Bend, Channel Islands, Mammoth Cave, and the slickrock wilderness of Utah were forever saved by his leadership.Brinkley traces FDR’s love for the natural world from his youth exploring the Hudson River Valley and bird watching. As America’s president from 1933 to 1945, Roosevelt—consummate political strategist—established hundreds of federal migratory bird refuges and spearheaded the modern endangered species movement. He brilliantly positioned his conservation goals as economic policy to combat the severe unemployment of the Great Depression. During its nine-year existence, the CCC put nearly three million young men to work on conservation projects—including building trails in the national parks, pollution control, land restoration to combat the Dust Bowl, and planting over two billion trees.Rightful Heritage is an epic chronicle that is both an irresistible portrait of FDR’s unrivaled passion and drive, and an indispensable analysis that skillfully illuminates the tension between business and nature—exploiting our natural resources and conserving them. Within the narrative are brilliant capsule biographies of such environmental warriors as Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes, and Rosalie Edge. Rightful Heritage is essential reading for everyone seeking to preserve our treasured landscapes as an American birthright.

The Bobcat


Katherine Forbes Riley - 2019
    Most comfortable in the company of the child for whom she babysits, and most at ease in the woods, Laurelie has shunned any connection with her peers.One day, while exploring the woods, she and her young charge encounter an injured pregnant bobcat – and the hiker who has been following it for hundreds of miles. In the hiker and his feline companion, Laurelie recognizes someone as reclusive and wary as herself. The hiker, too, finds human companionship painful to endure, yet he is drawn to wounded Laurelie the way he is drawn to the bobcat.As Laurelie moves toward recovery and reconnection she also finds her voice as an artist, and a sense of purpose, maybe even a future, comes into sight. Then the child goes missing in the woods, threatening the bobcat, the hiker, and the fragile peace Laurelie has constructed.With the hypnotic intensity of Emily Fridlund’s The History of Wolves and Fiona McFarlane’s The Night Guest, Riley has created a mesmerizing love story, in lush, gorgeous prose, that examines art, science, and the magic of human chemistry.

Listening to Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us


Alexandra Morton - 2002
    In the late 1970s, while working at Marineland in California, Alexandra pioneered the recording of orca sounds by dropping a hydrophone into the tank of two killer whales. She recorded the varied language of mating, childbirth, and even grief after the birth of a stillborn calf. At the same time she made the startling observation that the whales were inventing wonderful synchronized movements, a behavior that was soon recognized as a defining characteristic of orca society. In 1984, Alexandra moved to a remote bay in British Columbia to continue her research with wild orcas. Her recordings of the whales have led her to a deeper understanding of the mystery of whale echolocation, the vocal communication that enables the mammals to find their way in the dark sea. A fascinating study of the profound communion between humans and whales, this book will open your eyes anew to the wonders of the natural world.

The Neptune Project


Polly Holyoke - 2013
    Nere has never understood why she is so much more comfortable and confident in the water than on land until the day she learns the shocking truth—she is one of a group of kids who have been genetically altered to survive in the ocean. These products of the "Neptune Project" are supposed to build a better future under the waves, safe from the terrible famines and wars and that rock the surface world.But there are some big challenges ahead of her: no one ever asked Nere if she wanted to be part of a science experiment; the other Neptune kids aren't exactly the friendliest bunch, and in order to reach the safe haven of the new Neptune colony, Nere and her fellow mutates must swim across hundreds of miles of dangerous ocean, relying on their wits, their loyal dolphins and one another to evade terrifying undersea creatures and a government that will stop at nothing to capture the Neptune kids ... dead or alive.

The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell


Mark Kurlansky - 2005
    With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious.

The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod


Henry Beston - 1928
    Henry Beston had originally planned to spend just two weeks in a seaside cottage, but was so possessed by the mysterious beauty of his surroundings that he found he "could not go."Instead, he sat down to try and capture in words the wonders of the magical landscape he found himself in thrall to: the migrations of seabirds, the rhythms of the tide, the windblown dunes, and the scatter of stars in the changing sky. Beston argued that, "The world today is sick to its thin blood for the lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot." Seventy-five years after they were first published, Beston's words are more true than ever.

Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness


Pete Fromm - 1993
    A gripping story of adventure and a modern-day Walden, this contemporary classic established Fromm as one of the West's premier voices.

Sweet Magnolias Collection Volume 2: Feels Like Family / Welcome to Serenity / Home in Carolina


Sherryl Woods - 2017
    Taking charge of her own destiny puts her at odds with her two best friends and sets sparks flying with a man who doesn’t want a family, but it also leads her straight into the most unexpected complication of all…love.Welcome to SerenityWhen Jeanette Brioche helped launch The Corner Spa in Serenity, South Carolina, she discovered the deep and loyal friendships that had been missing from her life. But even the Sweet Magnolias can’t persuade her to enjoy the holiday season—until Jeanette is pushed into working on the Christmas festival with the sexy new town manager, Tom McDonald.Home in CarolinaFor Annie Sullivan, coming home to Serenity is bittersweet. She’d always envisioned a life there with her childhood best friend, Tyler Townsend, but his betrayal years ago cost her the future they’d once planned. Now that Annie’s back in town, can Ty persuade her to forgive and forget?

Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas


Eva Saulitis - 2013
    With the intellectual rigor of a scientist and the heart of a poet, Saulitis gives voice to these vital yet vanishing survivors and the place they are so loyal to. Both an elegy for one orca family and a celebration of the entire species, Into Great Silence is a moving portrait of the interconnectedness of humans with animals and place—and of the responsibility we have to protect them.

Collected Love Poems


Brian Patten - 2007
    Truthful and tender, profoundly aware of the possibility of magic and the miraculous, these poems are beautiful, informed, and, even at their darkest moments, filled with courage and hope. Alongside old favorites, this edition will contain a selection of new, unpublished poems. This is a must for poetry lovers.

Behind the Dolphin smile: One Man's Campaign to Protect the World's Dolphins


Richard O'Barry - 1989
    Ric O’Barry shares his journey with dolphins and other sea mammals in this captivating autobiographical look back at his years as a dolphin trainer for aquatic theme parks, movies, and television. Also included is a preface relaying a first-hand account of his adventures filming the 2010 Academy Award–winning documentary The Cove, which covertly uncovered Japan’s inhumane dolphin-hunting practices. O’Barry, a successful animal trainer who had had everything—money, flashy cars, pretty women—came to realize that dolphins were easy to train, not because of his great talent, but because they possessed great intelligence, and that keeping them in captivity was cruel and morally wrong. O’Barry now dedicates his life to stopping the exploitation of these exceptional mammals by retraining them to return to their natural habitats.

Goodbye to a River: A Narrative


John Graves - 1959
    For John Graves, this project meant that if the stream’s regimen was thus changed, the beautiful and sometimes brutal surrounding countryside would also change, as would the lives of the people whose rugged ancestors had eked out an existence there. Graves therefore decided to visit that stretch of the river, which he had known intimately as a youth.Goodbye to a River is his account of that farewell canoe voyage. As he braves rapids and fatigue and the fickle autumn weather, he muses upon old blood feuds of the region and violent skirmishes with native tribes, and retells wild stories of courage and cowardice and deceit that shaped both the river’s people and the land during frontier times and later. Nearly half a century after its initial publication, Goodbye to a River is a true American classic, a vivid narrative about an exciting journey and a powerful tribute to a vanishing way of life and its ever-changing natural environment.

Eye of the Beholder


Marilyn Lee - 2009
    Diana Stuart accepts the challenge of helping him find his way back to the Lord. Along the way she hopes David will realize that his young daughter needs a step-mom. The only problem is that David has made it clear the pretty, but full-figured Diana has no chance of being that step-mom. Diana sets out to change his mind without losing her own faith.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek


Annie Dillard - 1974
    In the summer, Dillard stalks muskrats in the creek and contemplates wave mechanics; in the fall she watches a monarch butterfly migration and dreams of Arctic caribou. She tries to con a coot; she collects pond water and examines it under a microscope. She unties a snake skin, witnesses a flood, and plays 'King of the Meadow' with a field of grasshoppers.

The Lust List: Kaidan Stone: The Complete Series


Nova Raines - 2015
    They're the world's sexiest bachelors. The men of ScandalLust mag's infamous Lust List are young, wealthy, and, oh, did we mention? HOT. When scandal follows them everywhere, there’s no hiding from the cameras. They're irresistible, insatiable—and talented in all the right ways. Every woman wants them. But these playboys won't be easy to catch... Hayley Wade’s rock star dad just partied himself into an early grave and left Hayley with a pile of dangerous debt. She plans to pay it off, but her drug-addled father wrote an impossible task into his will: to inherit his wealth, Hayley must steal back a family heirloom he lost to a gold digger. Kaidan Stone grew up surrounded by the world’s biggest stars, but never wanted to be in the limelight. When he makes The Lust List, he becomes America’s newest celebrity obsession overnight. After Kaidan saves Hayley from a run-in with the aggressive paparazzi, sparks fly, and she discovers the heirloom is in his California mansion. It’s the answer to all her problems…but she’ll have to betray Kaidan to get it.