Book picks similar to
When Pigs Could Fly and Bears Could Dance: A History of the Soviet Circus by Miriam Neirick
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Subpar Parks: America's Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors
Amber Share - 2021
Subpar Parks, both on the popular Instagram page and in this humorous, informative, and collectible book, combines two things that seem like they might not work together yet somehow harmonize perfectly: beautiful illustrations and informative, amusing text celebrating each national park paired with the one-star reviews disappointed tourists have left online. Millions of visitors each year enjoy Glacier National Park, but for one visitor, it was simply Too cold for me! Another saw the mind-boggling vistas of Bryce Canyon as Too spiky! Never mind the person who visited the thermal pools at Yellowstone National Park and left thinking, "Save yourself some money, boil some water at home."Featuring more than 50 percent new material, the book will include more depth and insight into the most popular parks, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Acadia National Parks; anecdotes and tips from rangers; and much more about author Amber Share's personal love and connection to the outdoors. Equal parts humor and love for the national parks and the great outdoors, it's the perfect gift for anyone who loves to spend time outside as well as have a good read (and laugh) once they come indoors.
Cataclysms on the Columbia: The Great Missoula Floods
John Eliot Allen - 1986
One follows geological research that challenged the scientific paradigm of the early 20th century, and the other chronicles the result of that research: the discovery of powerful prehistoric floods that shaped the Pacific Northwest. The cataclysms at the end of the last Ice Age left a scabland of buttes, dry falls, and rocky gorges, but it took the detective work of geologist J Harlen Bretz to prove it to the world. His lifetime of research and unshakeable belief changed geology forever.
The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures
Christine Kenneally - 2014
While some books explore our genetic inheritance and popular television shows celebrate ancestry, this is the first book to explore how everything from DNA to emotions to names and the stories that form our lives are all part of our human legacy. This book shows how trust is inherited in Africa, silence is passed down in Tasmania, and how the history of nations is written in our DNA. From fateful, ancient encounters to modern mass migrations and medical diagnoses, Kenneally explains how the forces that shaped the history of the world ultimately shape each human who inhabits it. The Invisible History of the Human Race is a deeply researched, carefully crafted, and provocative perspective on how our stories, psychology, and genetics affect our past and our future.
Strange Behavior: Tales of Evolutionary Neurology
Harold Klawans - 2001
From the woman suffering from "painful foot and moving toe syndrome" to the Indiana farmer who contacted a variant of mad cow disease from his herds of livestock, Klawans deduced a great deal from his patients, not only about the immediate causes of their ailments, but about the evolutionary underpinnings of their behavior.
A Plague of Frogs: The Horrifying True Story
William Souder - 2000
Since then, deformed frogs have been turning up in lakes around the world. Written by the only journalist granted access to secret hot spots where these deformed frogs are tested, and brainstorming sessions among the researchers, this compelling, fast-paced narrative is the first to offer a complete picture of what is quite possibly a global catastrophe in the making.
Animals Strike Curious Poses
Elena Passarello - 2017
Modeled loosely after a medieval bestiary, these witty, playful, whipsmart essays traverse history, myth, science, and more, bringing each beast vibrantly to life.
Our Planet: The official companion to the ground-breaking Netflix original Attenborough series with a special foreword by David Attenborough
Alastair Fothergill - 2019
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The Assassination of JFK: Minute by Minute
Jonathan Mayo - 2013
From Dallas nightclub reporter Tony Zoppi, who found himself carrying the president's casket; Secret Service agent Clint Hill beating his hands in despair on the trunk of the limousine as he watches Kennedy die; Howard Brennan, a construction worker on a lunch break watching a man take aim on the motorcade with a rifle; reporter Hugh Aynesworth with only an electricity bill on which to write notes for the scoop of his career; DJ John Peel a few feet from Oswald as he's questioned by the press; to Robert Kennedy sitting in the dark in the back of an empty army truck, waiting for his brother's body to arrive. 'The Assassination of JFK: Minute by Minute' is pure chronological narrative, giving a blow by blow account of the terrible events as they unfolded.
SBS: The Inside Story of the Special Boat Service
John Parker - 1997
Although SAS activity has been extensively documented, the SBS has remained in the state it prefers - a shadowy silhouette, with identities protected and missions kept from public view. Formed during the Second World War, when they took part in many daring raids (one of which was filmed as The Cockleshell Heroes), they were active in the jungle campaigns in the Far East, in the Falklands, the Gulf War and Bosnia. Since this seminal book was published in 1997, John Parker has been privy to much more inside information about the SBS's original operations and he brings the book right up to date with accounts of their exploits in East Timor, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and most recently in Iraq.
Antarctica: An Intimate Portrait of the World's Most Mysterious Continent
Gabrielle Walker - 2012
Gabrielle Walker, author, consultant to New Scientist and regular broadcaster with the BBC has written a book unlike any that has ever been written about the continent. Antarctica weaves all the significant threads into an intricate tapestry, made up of science, natural history, poetry, epic history, what it feels like to be there and why it draws so many different kinds of people back there again and again. It is only when all the parts come together that the underlying truths of the continent emerge. Antarctica is the most alien place on Earth, the only part of our planet where humans could never survive unaided. It is truly like walking on another planet. And yet, in its silence, its agelessness and its mysteries lie the secrets of our past, and of our future.
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows
Melanie Joy - 2009
Carnism causes extensive animal suffering and global injustice, and it drives us to act against our own interests and the interests of others without fully realizing what we are doing. Becoming aware of what carnism is and how it functions is vital to personal empowerment and social transformation, as it enables us to make our food choices more freely—because without awareness, there is no free choice.
Shrinking the Cat: Genetic Engineering Before We Knew About Genes
Sue Hubbell - 2001
Focusing on four specific examples — corn, silkworms, domestic cats, and apples — she traces the histories of species that have been fundamentally altered over the centuries by the whims and needs of people.
Sex in the Sea: Our Intimate Connection with Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters, Kinky Squid, and Other Salty Erotica of the Deep
Marah J. Hardt - 2016
Through overfishing, climate change, and ocean pollution we are disrupting the creative procreation that drives the wild abundance of life in the ocean. With wit and scientific rigor, Hardt introduces us to the researchers and innovators who study the wet and wild sex lives of ocean life and offer solutions that promote rather than prevent, successful sex in the sea. Part science, part erotica, Sex in the Sea discusses how we can shift from a prophylactic to a more propagative force for life in the ocean.
Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend
Susan Orlean - 2011
Susan Orlean's book--about the dog and the legend--is a poignant exploration of the enduring bond between humans and animals. It is also a richly textured history of twentieth-century entertainment and entrepreneurship. It spans ninety years and explores everything from the shift in status of dogs from working farmhands to beloved family members, from the birth of obedience training to the evolution of dog breeding, from the rise of Hollywood to the past and present of dogs in war.
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
Elizabeth KolbertElizabeth Kolbert - 2021
Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world's rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a super coral that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth.One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation.