For centuries these supremely adaptable, generous trees have supported humankind in nearly every facet of life. From the ink of Bach’s cantatas to the first boat to reach the New World, the wagon, the barrel, and the sword, oak trees have been a constant presence in our past. Yet we’ve largely forgotten the oak’s role in civilization. With reverence, humor, and compassion, Logan awakens us to the vibrant presence of the oak throughout our history and in today’s world.

    Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, The Tao of Travel enumerates “The Contents of Some Travelers’ Bags” and exposes “Writers Who Wrote about Places They Never Visited”; tracks extreme journeys in “Travel as an Ordeal” and highlights some of “Travelers’ Favorite Places.” Excerpts from the best of Theroux’s own work are interspersed with selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected: Vladimir Nabokov           J.R.R. Tolkien Samuel Johnson               Eudora WeltyEvelyn Waugh                  Isak Dinesen Charles Dickens               James Baldwin Henry David Thoreau       Pico Iyer Mark Twain                     Anton Chekhov Bruce Chatwin                  John McPheeFreya Stark                      Peter Matthiessen Graham Greene                Ernest Hemingway The Tao of Travel is a unique tribute to the pleasures and pains of travel in its golden age.

    alluring cultural world and someone whose life assumed an unbearably dramatic shape.

    Marc Bekoff, one of the world’s leading animal experts and activists, here applies rewilding to human attitudes. Rewilding Our Hearts invites readers to do the essential work of becoming reenchanted with the world, acting from the inside out, and dissolving false boundaries to truly connect with both nature and themselves.

    This title provides a complete guide to the mythical beasts and beings from a variety of cultures around the world, including Mesopotamian, ancient Greek, ancient Egyptian and Chinese, Japanese, Nordic, Celtic and Native American.

    Thanks to cartoons and folk accounts we have a distorted view of these other humans - for that is what they were. We think of them as crude and clumsy and not very bright, easily driven to extinction by the lithe, smart modern humans that came out of Africa some 100,000 years ago.But was it really as simple as that? Clive Finlayson reminds us that the Neanderthals were another kind of human, and their culture was not so very different from that of our own ancestors. In this book, he presents a wider view of the events that led to the migration of the moderns into Europe, what might have happened during the contact of the two populations, and what finally drove the Neanderthals to extinction. It is a view that considers climate, ecology, and migrations of populations, as well as culture and interaction.His conclusion is that the destiny of the Neanderthals and the Moderns was sealed by ecological factors and contingencies. It was a matter of luck that we survived and spread while the Neanderthals dwindled and perished. Had the climate not changed in our favour some 50 million years ago, things would have been very different.There is much current research interest in Neanderthals, much of it driven by attempts to map some of their DNA. But it's not just a question of studying the DNA. The rise and fall of populations is profoundly moulded by the larger scale forces of climate and ecology. And it is only by taking this wider view that we can fully understand the course of events that led to our survival and their demise. The fact that Neanderthals survived until virtually yesterday makes our relationship with them and their tragedy even more poignant. They almost made it, after all.

    Now they get their due in this delightfully illustrated, fact-filled book, courtesy of a professional beekeeper and nature writer who explores: • Why honey bees are disappearing-and what we can do about it • Who's who in the hive-the queen bee, the workers, and the drones • The role of bees in our food system • Swarming behavior-what it is, what it means, and how it's controlled • Bees by the numbers-number of bees per hive, number of wing beats per second, and other fascinating facts • Bees in folklore, literature, and pop culture • And much more

    Psychoanalyst Jean Bolen's career soared in the early 1980s when Goddesses in Everywoman was published. Thousands of women readers became fascinated with identifying their own inner goddesses and using these archetypes to guide themselves to greater self–esteem, creativity, and happiness.Bolen's radical idea was that just as women used to be unconscious of the powerful effects that cultural stereotypes had on them, they were also unconscious of powerful archetypal forces within them that influence what they do and how they feel, and which account for major differences among them. Bolen believes that an understanding of these inner patterns and their interrelationships offers reassuring, true–to–life alternatives that take women far beyond such restrictive dichotomies as masculine/feminine, mother/lover, careerist/housewife. And she demonstrates in this book how understanding them can provide the key to self–knowledge and wholeness.Dr. Bolen introduced these patterns in the guise of seven archetypal goddesses, or personality types, with whom all women could identify, from the autonomous Artemis and the cool Athena to the nurturing Demeter and the creative Aphrodite, and explains how to decide which to cultivate and which to overcome, and how to tap the power of these enduring archetypes to become a better "heroine" in one's own life story.

    B. White Naturalist, philosopher, champion of self-reliance and moral independence, Henry David Thoreau remains not only one of our most influential writers but also one of our most contemporary. This unique and comprehensive edition gathers all of Thoreau's most significant works, including his masterpiece, Walden (reproduced in its entirety); A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; selections from Cape Cod and The Maine Woods; as well as "Walking," "Civil Disobedience," "Slavery in Massachusetts," "A Plea for Captain John Brown," and "Life Without Principle." Taken together, they reveal the astounding range, subtlety, artistry, and depth of thought of this true American original.Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide

    I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information." Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays showcases America's leading polemicist's rejection of consensus and cliché whether he's reporting from abroad in Indonesia, Kurdistan, Iraq, North Korea, or Cuba, or when his pen is targeted mercilessly at the likes of William Clinton, Mother Theresa ("a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud"), the Dalai Lama, Noam Chomsky, Mel Gibson and Michael Bloomberg. Hitchens began the nineties as a "darling of the left" but has become more of an "unaffiliated radical" whose targets include those on the "left," who he accuses of "fudging" the issue of military intervention in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, as Hitchens shows in his reportage, cultural and literary criticism, and opinion essays from the last decade, he has not jumped ship and joined the right but is faithful to the internationalist, contrarian and democratic ideals that have always informed his work.

    Illustrated with luscious collages by acclaimed artist Ann Field, this enchanting tribute to the power and symbolism of flowers offers a contemporary introduction to an age-old tradition. The text draws on botanical, historical, and mythological sources worldwide, from ancient Rome to Victorian England, from Asia to the Americas, presenting portraits of almost 50 blossoms favored for all time. In Persia, for instance, the black medulla of the red tulip was said to represent the lover's heart, burnt to a coal by love's passion. To Victorians, lavender signified a broken trust, hollyhocks fertility, and nasturtiums a jest or whimsy. Blending fact, folktale, natural history, and original art, The Meaning of Flowers explores the language and lore of nature's most intimate and beautiful gifts.

    So it doesn’t go unnoticed when a dark-haired stranger appears on his bicycle and begins photographing the mourners at Mrs. Connulty’s funeral. Florian Kilderry couldn’t know that the Connultys are said to own half the town: he has only come to Rathmoye to photograph the scorched remains of its burnt-out cinema. A few miles out in the country, Dillahan, a farmer and a decent man, has married again: Ellie is the young convent girl who came to work for him when he was widowed. Ellie leads a quiet, routine life, often alone while Dillahan runs the farm. Florian is planning to leave Ireland and start over. Ellie is settled in her new role as Dillahan’s wife. But Florian’s visit to Rathmoye introduces him to Ellie, and a dangerously reckless attachment begins. In a characteristically masterly way Trevor evokes the passions and frustrations felt by Ellie and Florian, and by the people of a small Irish town during one long summer.

    Like a Wu Li Master who would teach us wonder for the falling petal before speaking of gravity, Zukav writes in beautifully clear language—with no mathematical equations—opening our minds to the exciting new theories that are beginning to embrace the ultimate nature of our universe...Quantum mechanics, relativity, and beyond to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect and Bell's theorem.At an Esalen Institute meeting in 1976, tai chi master Al Huang said that the Chinese word for physics is Wu Li, "patterns of organic energy." Journalist Gary Zukav and the others present developed the idea of physics as the dance of the Wu Li Masters--the teachers of physical essence. Zukav explains the concept further: The Wu Li Master dances with his student. The Wu Li Master does not teach, but the student learns. The Wu Li Master always begins at the center, the heart of the matter.... This book deals not with knowledge, which is always past tense anyway, but with imagination, which is physics come alive, which is Wu Li.... Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li Masters know that they are only dancing with it. The "new physics" of Zukav's 1979 book comprises quantum theory, particle physics, and relativity. Even as these theories age they haven't percolated all that far into the collective consciousness; they're too far removed from mundane human experience not to need introduction. The Dancing Wu Li Masters remains an engaging, accessible way to meet the most profound and mind-altering insights of 20th-century science. --Mary Ellen Curtin

    For centuries, Antarctica has captured the imagination of our greatest scientists and explorers, lingering in the spirit long after their return. Shackleton called it "the last great journey"; for Apsley Cherry-Garrard it was the worst journey in the world. This is a book about the call of the wild and the response of the spirit to a country that exists perhaps most vividly in the mind. Sara Wheeler spent seven months in Antarctica, living with its scientists and dreamers. No book is more true to the spirit of that continent--beguiling, enchanted and vast beyond the furthest reaches of our imagination. Chosen by Beryl Bainbridge and John Major as one of the best books of the year, recommended by the editors of Entertainment Weekly and the Chicago Tribune, one of the Seattle Times's top ten travel books of the year, Terra Incognita is a classic of polar literature.

    The news is full of archaeology: treasures found (British king under parking lot) and treasures lost (looters, bulldozers, natural disaster, and war). Archaeological research tantalizes us with possibilities (are modern humans really part Neandertal?). Where are the archaeologists behind these stories? What kind of work do they actually do, and why does it matter?Marilyn Johnson’s Lives in Ruins is an absorbing and entertaining look at the lives of contemporary archaeologists as they sweat under the sun for clues to the puzzle of our past. Johnson digs and drinks alongside archaeologists, chases them through the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and even Machu Picchu, and excavates their lives. Her subjects share stories we rarely read in history books, about slaves and Ice Age hunters, ordinary soldiers of the American Revolution, children of the first century, Chinese woman warriors, sunken fleets, mummies.What drives these archaeologists is not the money (meager) or the jobs (scarce) or the working conditions (dangerous), but their passion for the stories that would otherwise be buried and lost.