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DAISY audio (CD), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Science and technology, Travel and geography
Human-narrated audio
Recently recovered from his epic bicycle journey that took him from the Delaware shore to the Oregon coast, distinguished climate…
scientist David Goodrich sets out on his bike again to traverse the Western Interior Seaway—an ancient ocean that once spread across half of North America. When the waters cleared a geologic age ago, what was left behind was vast flat prairie, otherworldly rock formations, and oil shale deposits. As Goodrich journeys through the Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park and across the prairies of the upper Midwest and Canada, we get a raw and ground-level view of where the tar sands and oil reserves are being opened up at an incredible and unprecedented pace. Extraordinary and unregulated, this "black goldrush" is boom and bust in every sense. In a manner reminiscent of John McPhee and Rachel Carson, combined with Goodrich's wry self-deprecation and scientific expertise, A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean is a galvanizing and adventure-filled listen that gets to the heart of drilling on our continent
DAISY audio (CD), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Adventurers and explorers, History
Human-narrated audio
In the bestselling tradition of Hampton Sides's In the Kingdom of Ice , a riveting and cinematic tale of Dutch…
polar explorer William Barents and his three harrowing Arctic expeditions—the last of which resulted in a relentlessly challenging year-long fight for survival. The human story has always been one of perseverance—often against remarkable odds. The most astonishing survival tale of all might be that of 16th-century Dutch explorer William Barents and his crew of sixteen, who ventured farther north than any Europeans before and, on their third polar exploration, lost their ship off the frozen coast of Nova Zembla to unforgiving ice. The men would spend the next year fighting off ravenous polar bears, gnawing hunger, and endless winter. In Icebound , Andrea Pitzer masterfully combines a gripping tale of survival with a sweeping history of the great Age of Exploration—a time of hope, adventure, and seemingly unlimited geographic frontiers. At the story's center is William Barents, one of the 16th century's greatest navigators whose larger-than-life ambitions and obsessive quest to chart a path through the deepest, most remote regions of the Arctic ended in both tragedy and glory. Journalist Pitzer did extensive research, learning how to use four-hundred-year-old navigation equipment, setting out on three Arctic expeditions to retrace Barents's steps, and visiting replicas of Barents's ship and cabin. "A visceral, thrilling account full of tantalizing surprises" (Andrea Barrett, author of The Voyage of the Narwhal ), Pitzer's reenactment of Barents's ill-fated journey shows us how the human body can function at twenty degrees below, the history of mutiny, the art of celestial navigation, and the intricacies of building shelters. But above all, it gives us a first-hand glimpse into the true nature of human courage
DAISY audio (CD), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Science and technology, Environment, Adventure and exploration
Human-narrated audio
Concern about the climate crisis is widespread as humans struggle to navigate life in uncertain times. From the vantage of…
a schooner full of artists on an adventure in the high Arctic, biologist Lynne Quarmby explains the science that convinced her of an urgent need to act on climate change and recounts how this knowledge - and the fear and panic it elicited - plunged her into unsustainable action, ending in arrests, lawsuits, and a failed electoral campaign on behalf of the Green Party of Canada. Watermelon Snow weaves memoir, microbiology, and artistic antics together with descriptions of a sublime Arctic landscape. At the top of the warming world, Quarmby struggles with burnout and grief while an aerial artist twirls high in the ship's rigging, bearded seals sing mournfully, polar bears prowl, and glaciers crumble into the sea. In a compelling narrative, sorrow and fear are balanced by beauty and wonder. The author's journey back from a life out of balance includes excursions into evolutionary history where her discoveries reveal the heart of human existence. The climate realities are as dark as the Arctic winter, yet this is a book of lightness and generosity. Quarmby's voice, intimate and original, illuminates the science while offering a reminder that much about the human experience is beyond reason. Inspiring and deeply personal, Watermelon Snow is the story of one scientist's rediscovery of what it means to live a good life at a time of increasing desperation about the future