Along the way, he meets up with a flurry of fellow enthusiasts, from avalanche survivors and resort operators to climate scientists and champion skiers. English is obsessed with snow, and has collected for our enjoyment an amazing array of not-so-random facts about the hexagonal substance that fills the human imagination with wonder. In a section called the "Snow Handbook," he describes how snow is created, how to build an igloo, how avalanches occur, and (more importantly) how to survive an avalanche. His glossary is filled with snow terms that will delight, such as "couloir," "hoarfrost," "firn," and "sastrugi." Fresh and fun and infused with the adrenaline of adventure, The Snow Tourist is a fascinating account of one man's pilgrimage through the world's blanketed fields, ice-capped rooftops, cozy igloos, and snow-covered mountain peaks.

    The expedition was described by the two men in Sea of Cortez, published in 1941. The day-to-day story of the trip is told here in the Log, which combines science, philosophy and high-spirited adventure.Log from the Sea of Cortez includes the narrative of the journey and the essay “About Ed Ricketts.” It does not include pictures and detailed descriptions of the species collected by Steinbeck and Ricketts. (See also Sea of Cortez.)

    Journeying through human and natural history, The Whale is the result of his voyage of discovery into the heart of this obsession and the book that inspired it: Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. Taking us deep into their domain, Hoare shows us these mysterious creatures as they have never been seen before. Following in Ishmael's footsteps, he explores the troubled history of man and whale; visits the historic whaling locales of New Bedford, Nantucket, and the Azores; and traces the whale's cultural history from Jonah to Free Willy. Winner of the prestigious BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, The Whale is an unforgettable and often moving attempt to explain why these strange and beautiful animals still exert such a powerful hold on our imagination.

    Glaciers will melt, the level of the sea will rise, and its acidity will change more than it has in the past 50 million years. These changes will affect all life on earth, everyone that we know, and everyone that we love. It is more complex than the mind can comprehend, greater than all of our past experience, bigger than language. What words can grasp an issue of this magnitude?In an attempt to capture this vast issue, Andri Snær Magnason takes both a personal and a scientific approach―weaving his way through climate science via ancient legends about sacred cows, stories of ancestors and relatives, and interviews with the Dalai Lama. The resulting narrative is at once a travel story, a world history, and a reminder to live in harmony with future generations.

    Nature as delight. Nature as mother and sister. Nature as victim. Nature as companion and reminder of what is wild in us all. Here, among more than a hundred poets and prose writers, are Diane Ackerman on the opium of sunsets; Ursula K. Le Guin envisioning an alternative world in which human beings are not estranged from their planet; and Julia Butterfly Hill on weathering a fierce storm in the redwood tree where she lived for more than two years. Here, too, are poems, essays, stories, and journal entries by Emily Dickinson, Alice Walker, Terry Tempest Williams, Willa Cather, Gretel Erlich, Adrienne Rich, and others—each offering a vivid, eloquent response to the natural world.This second edition of Sisters of the Earth is fully revised and updated with a new preface and nearly fifty new pieces, including new contributions by Louise Erdrich, Pam Houston, Zora Neale Hurston, Starhawk, Joy Williams, Kathleen Norris, Rita Dove, and Barbara Kingsolver.

    Culled from the mud-spattered pages of her journal, this is her unvarnished account of her adventures and research.

    Dave Goulson has always been obsessed with wildlife, from his childhood menagerie of exotic pets and dabbling in experimental taxidermy to his groundbreaking research into the mysterious ways of the bumblebee and his mission to protect our rarest bees. Once commonly found in the marshes of Kent, the short-haired bumblebee now only exists in the wilds of New Zealand, the descendants of a few queen bees shipped over in the nineteenth century. Dave Goulson's passionate drive to reintroduce it to its native land is one of the highlights of a book that includes exclusive research into these curious creatures, history's relationship with the bumblebee and advice on how to protect it for all time. One of the UK's most respected conservationists and the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Goulson combines Gerald Durrell-esque tales of a child's growing passion for nature with a deep insight into the crucial importance of the bumblebee. He details the minutiae of life in their nests, sharing fascinating research into the effects intensive farming has had on our bee populations and on the potential dangers if we are to continue down this path.

    She fell in love with the silence, and in this profound, frank memoir she describes how she explored this new love, searching for silence and solitude.

    One midsummer week over sixty years later, Olivia Laing walked Woolf's river from source to sea. The result is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape - and how ghosts never quite leave the places they love. Along the way, Laing explores the roles rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through literature and mythology alike. To the River excavates all sorts of stories from the Ouse's marshy banks, from the brutal Barons' War of the thirteenth century to the 'Dinosaur Hunters', the nineteenth-century amateur naturalists who first cracked the fossil code. Central among these ghosts is, of course, Virginia Woolf herself: her life, her writing and her watery death. Woolf is the most constant companion on Laing's journey, and To the River can be read in part as a biography of this extraordinary English writer, refracted back through the river she loved. But other writers float through these pages too - among them Iris Murdoch, Shakespeare, Homer and Kenneth Grahame, author of the riverside classic The Wind in the Willows. The result is a wonderfully discursive read - which interweaves biography, history, nature writing and memoir, driven by Laing's deep understanding of science and cultural history. It's a beautiful, lyrical work that marks the arrival of a major new writer.

    If the world lost the sub-species, it would be the largest land mammal since the woolly mammoth to go extinct. In "The Last Rhinos," Anthony recounts his attempts to save these animals.The demand for rhino horns in the Far East has turned poaching into a dangerous black market that threatens the lives of not just these rare beasts, but also the rangers who protect them.The northern white rhino's last refuge was in an area controlled by the infamous Lord's Resistance Army, one of the most vicious rebel groups in the world. In the face of unmoving government bureaucracy, Anthony made a perilous journey deep into the jungle to try to find and convince them to help save the rhino.

    Washington, Maine, a naturalist's stunning record of his 17,000-mile journey keeping pace with the advancing tide of the North American spring. Illustrated.

    The area immediately next to Luna had already been stripped and, because, as many believed, nothing was left to hold the soil to the mountain, a huge part of the hill had slid into the town of Stafford, wiping out many homes.Over the course of what turned into an historic civil action, Hill endured El Nino storms, helicopter harassment, a ten-day siege by company security guards, and the tremendous sorrow brought about by an old-growth forest's destruction. This story--written while she lived on a tiny platform eighteen stories off the ground--is one that only she can tell.Twenty-five-year-old Julia Butterfly Hill never planned to become what some have called her--the Rosa Parks of the environmental movement. Shenever expected to be honored as one of Good Housekeeping's "Most Admired Women of 1998" and George magazine's "20 Most Interesting Women in Politics," to be featured in People magazine's "25 Most Intriguing People of the Year" issue, or to receive hundreds of letters weekly from young people around the world. Indeed, when she first climbed into Luna, she had no way of knowing the harrowing weather conditions and the attacks on her and her cause. She had no idea of the loneliness she would face or that her feet wouldn't touch ground for more than two years. She couldn't predict the pain of being an eyewitness to the attempted destruction of one of the last ancient redwood forests in the world, nor could she anticipate the immeasurable strength she would gain or the life lessons she would learn from Luna. Although her brave vigil and indomitable spirit have made her a heroine in the eyes of many, Julia's story is a simple, heartening tale of love, conviction, and the profound courage she has summoned to fight for our earth's legacy.

    As a young man, he climbed the peaks of this singular range with basic climbing gear friends. Later in life, he led treks in India, Pakistan, Nepal, China, Tibet, and Peru, but he always returned to the mountains of his youth. He continues to climb the Tetons as a guide for Exum Mountain, Guides, the oldest and most prestigious guide service in America. Teewinot is his ode to forty years in the mountains that he loves. Like Thoreau and Muir, Turner has contemplated the essential nature of a landscape. Teewinot is a book about a mountain range, its austere temper, its seasons, its flora and fauna, a few of its climbs, its weather, and the glory of the wildness. It is also about a small group of guides and rangers, nomads who inhabit the range each summer and know the mountains as intimately as they will ever be known. It is also a remarkable account of what it is like to live and work in a national park. Teewinot has something for everyone: spellbinding accounts of classic climbs, awe at the beauty of nature, and passion for some of the environmental issues facing America today. In this series of recollections, one of America's most beautiful national parks comes alive with beauty, mystery, and power. The beauty, mystery, and power of the Grand Tetons come alive in Jack Turner's memoir of a year on America's most beautiful mountain range.

    For three men in particular, 1998 would become a grueling battle for a new North American birding record. Bouncing from coast to coast on frenetic pilgrimages for once-in-a-lifetime rarities, they brave broiling deserts, bug-infested swamps, and some of the lumpiest motel mattresses known to man. This unprecedented year of beat-the-clock adventures ultimately leads one man to a record so gigantic that it is unlikely ever to be bested. Here, prize-winning journalist Mark Obmascik creates a dazzling, fun narrative of the 275,000-mile odyssey of these three obsessives as they fight to win the greatest -- or maybe worst -- birding contest of all time.

    Birds by the Shore is a book about discovering the natural life at the ocean's edge: the habits of shorebirds and seabirds, the movement of sand and water, the wealth of creatures that survive amid storm and surf. Against this landscape's rhythms, Ackerman revisits her own history--her mother's death, her father's illness and her hopes to have children of her own.This portrait of life at the ocean's edge will be relished by anyone who has walked a beach at sunset, or watched a hawk hover over a winter marsh, and felt part of the natural world. With a quiet passion and friendly, generous intelligence, it explores the way that landscape shapes our thoughts and perceptions and shows that home ground is often where we feel the deepest response to the planet.