Book picks similar to
Northern California Nature Guide by Erin McCloskey


biology
classroom-library
general-nonfiction
natural-history

The Last Ivory Hunter


Peter Hathaway Capstick - 1988
    Wally Johnson spent half a century in Mozambique hunting white gold--ivory. Most men died at this hazardous trade. He's the last one able to tell his story.In hours of conversations by mopane fired in the African bush, Wally described his career--how he survived the massive bite of a Gaboon viper, buffalo gorings, floods, disease, and most dangerous of all, gold fever. He bluffed down 200 armed poachers almost single-handedly, and survived rocket attacks from communist revolutionaries during Mozambique's plunge into chaos in 1975. In Botswana, at age 63, Wally continued his career. Though the great tuskers have largely gone and most of Wally's colleagues are dead, Wally has survived. His words are rugged testimony to an Africa that is now a distant dream.

Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans


Brian M. Fagan - 2010
    The prolonged encounter between the Cro-Magnons and the archaic Neanderthals and between 45,000 and 30,000 years ago was one of the defining moments of history. The Neanderthals survived for some 15,000 years in the face of the newcomers, but were finally pushed aside by the Cro-Magnons' vastly superior intellectual abilities and cutting-edge technologies, which allowed them to thrive in the intensely challenging climate of the Ice Age.What do we know about this remarkable takeover? Who were the first modern Europeans and what were they like? How did they manage to thrive in such an extreme environment? And what legacy did they leave behind them after the cold millennia? The age of the Cro-Magnons lasted some 30,000 years?longer than all of recorded history. Cro-Magnon is the story of a little known, yet seminal, chapter of human experience.

Alzheimer's Disease: What If There Was a Cure?: The Story of Ketones


Mary T. Newport - 2011
    Mary T. Newport has demonstrated through her care for her husband that there is hope, relief, and perhaps a cure.

Dark Winter: How the Sun Is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell


John Casey - 2014
    In Dark Winter, author John L. Casey, a former White House national space policy advisor, NASA headquarters consultant, and space shuttle engineer tells the truth about ominous changes taking place in the climate and the Sun.Casey’s research into the Sun’s activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next thirty years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world’s citizens. In Dark Winter, he provides evidence of the following:• The end of global warming• The beginning of a “solar hibernation,” a historic reduction in the energy output of the Sun• A long-term drop in Earth’s temperatures• The start of the next climate change to decades of dangerously cold weather• The high probability of record earthquakes and volcanic eruptionsA sobering look at Earth’s future, Dark Winter predicts worldwide, crop- destroying cold; food shortages and riots in the United States and abroad; significant global loss of life; and social, political, and economic upheaval.

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2014


Bob Sehlinger - 2013
    The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World explains how Disney World works and how to use that knowledge to make every minute and every dollar of your vacation count. With advice that is direct, prescriptive, and detailed, it takes the guesswork out of travel by unambiguously rating and ranking everything from hotels, restaurants, and attractions to rental car companies. With an Unofficial Guide, you know what’s available in every category, from the best to the worst and step-by-step detailed plans allow the reader to make the most of their time at Disney World.

The Peregrine


J.A. Baker - 1967
    Baker set out to track the daily comings and goings of a pair of peregrine falcons across the flat fen lands of eastern England. He followed the birds obsessively, observing them in the air and on the ground, in pursuit of their prey, making a kill, eating, and at rest, activities he describes with an extraordinary fusion of precision and poetry. And as he continued his mysterious private quest, his sense of human self slowly dissolved, to be replaced with the alien and implacable consciousness of a hawk.It is this extraordinary metamorphosis, magical and terrifying, that these beautifully written pages record.

Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live


Rob Dunn - 2018
    In Never Home Alone, biologist Rob Dunn introduces us to the nearly 200,000 species living with us in our own homes, from the Egyptian meal moths in our cupboards and camel crickets in our basements to the lactobacillus lounging on our kitchen counters. You are not alone. Yet, as we obsess over sterilizing our homes and separating our spaces from nature, we are unwittingly cultivating an entirely new playground for evolution. These changes are reshaping the organisms that live with us -- prompting some to become more dangerous, while undermining those species that benefit our bodies or help us keep more threatening organisms at bay. No one who reads this engrossing, revelatory book will look at their homes in the same way again.

The Garden State Parkway Murders


Christian Barth - 2020
    All of that was accomplished. It was remarkable.” - John Divel, Ocean City Police Department The Garden State Parkway Murders: A Cold Case Mystery is the first and only historical account of the unsolved murders of college friends Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry, who were stabbed to death in the woods alongside the Garden State Parkway near Ocean City, New Jersey on Memorial Day 1969. The discovery of the wealthy coeds three days after their slayings, as reported by Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News, touches off one of the largest manhunts in New Jersey since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Over the next ten years the New Jersey State Police, Atlantic County (N.J.) Prosecutor’s Office, and FBI question thousands of people, tracking leads as far as San Francisco in search of the killer. Among the suspects are infamous serial killers Ted Bundy and Gerald Eugene Stano, who were living within an hour’s drive from the murders at the time they occurred, resided next to one another for a time on Florida’s Death Row, and indirectly confessed to the murders before being executed. The Garden State Parkway Murders tracks the author’s decade-long obsession with seeking justice for Davis and Perry. Presented with all the information surrounding these brutal murders, including a discussion of recent technological advancements in DNA and FBI serial killer profiling, the reader is asked to consider, why hasn’t this cold case been solved?

A Deal With the Devil: Discovering Chris Watts: - Part Two - The Facts


Netta Newbound - 2020
    

Lords Of The Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, And The Future Of Food


Daniel Charles - 2001
    Giant corporations are creating designer crops with strange powers-from cholesterol-reducing soybeans to plants that act as miniature drug factories, churning out everything from vaccines to insulin. They promise great benefits: better health for consumers, more productive agriculture-even an end to world hunger. But the vision has a dark side, one of profit-driven tampering with life and the possible destruction of entire ecosystems. In Lords of the Harvest, Daniel Charles takes us deep inside research labs, farm sheds, and corporate boardrooms to reveal the hidden story behind this agricultural revolution. He tells how a handful of scientists at Monsanto drove biotechnology from the lab into the field, and how the company's opponents are fighting back with every tool available to them, including the cynical manipulation of public fears. A dramatic account of boundless ambition, political intrigue, and the quest for knowledge, Lords of the Harvest is ultimately a story of idealism and of conflicting dreams about the shape of a better world.

Microbiology with Diseases by Body System


Robert W. Bauman - 2008
    

Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth


Chris Stringer - 2011
    Stringer's new theory, based on archeological and genetic evidence, holds that distinct humans coexisted and competed across the African continent—exchanging genes, tools, and behavioral strategies.Stringer draws on analyses of old and new fossils from around the world, DNA studies of Neanderthals (using the full genome map) and other species, and recent archeological digs to unveil his new theory. He shows how the most sensational recent fossil findings fit with his model, and he questions previous concepts (including his own) of modernity and how it evolved.Lone Survivors will be the definitive account of who and what we were, and will change perceptions about our origins and about what it means to be human.

Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke


Dean Kuipers - 2006
    On a mission to build a peaceful, pot-friendly Shangri-La, Tom Crosslin and his lover Rollie Rohm founded Rainbow Farm, a well-appointed campground and concert venue tucked away in rural Southwest Michigan. The farm quickly became the center of marijuana and environmental activism in Michigan, drawing thousands of blue-collar libertarians and hippie liberals, evangelicals and militiamen to its annual hemp festivals. People came from all over the country to support Tom and Rollie's libertarian brand of patriotism: They loved America but didn't like the War on Drugs.As Rainbow Farm launched a popular statewide ballot initiative to change marijuana laws, local authorities, who had scarcely tolerated Rainbow Farm in the past, began an all-out campaign to shut the place down. Finally, in May 2001, Tom and Rollie were arrested for growing marijuana. Rollie's 11-year-old son, who grew up on Rainbow Farm, was placed in foster care - Tom would never see him again. Faced with mandatory jail terms and the loss of the farm, Tom and Rollie never showed up for their August court date. Instead, the state's two best-known pot advocates burned Rainbow Farm to the ground in protest. County officials called the FBI, and within five days Tom and Rollie were dead. Obscured by the attacks of September 11, their stories will be told here for the first time.

Dinosaur Lives


Jack Horner - 1997
    Line drawings and black-and-white photographs.

Can I Retire Yet?: How to Make the Biggest Financial Decision of the Rest of Your Life


Darrow Kirkpatrick - 2016
    You've reached major milestones and accumulated more assets than you dreamed possible, and yet you hesitate. “Can I retire?” This book will help answer that question by showing you…. The tools you need to live a secure and independent retirement, without worrying about money What you must know before leaving a career behind How much it will cost you to live in retirement, and how to manage your cash flow The current choices for retirement health care, including lesser-known but effective options The threat from inflation: two secrets that politicians and bankers will never admit A realistic assessment of the impact that income taxes will have on your retirement Social Security’s role in your retirement: when you should claim and how much it’s worth to you How to construct and manage an investment portfolio for income and growth in retirement About immediate annuities and why you need multiple sources of retirement income The key variables and unknowns in your retirement withdrawal equation Reviews of the best retirement calculators, and tips for how to use them accurately Beyond the simplistic 4% Rule to the latest research on safe withdrawal rates Realistic bracketing of your retirement savings needs, without over caution or overconfidence The history of economic cycles and the related asset classes for optimal retirement security A survey of strategies plus original research for how to orchestrate your retirement distributions A practical retirement fuel gauge alerting you to problems while you still have time to act Backup plans: the lifeboat strategies for ensuring you'll never be without essential income The 6 crucial questions to answer before you can retire The one, simple, powerful, non-financial reason that you can and should retire earlier than later